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Official Word from the FAA about user fees

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Princedietrich

Retired Starchecker
Joined
Oct 27, 2004
Posts
1,437
This just went out today in a public press release on the FAA website, coming from the administrator herself. Included is an 11 page FAQ that attempts to clarify just what exactly this new plan will entail and where all the money is going to come from. Here is a snippet that directly addresses the "user fee" issue:

Air Traffic User Fees and Fuel Taxes
[FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]How will the proposal fund the Air Traffic Organization?

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  1. [FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]The Air Traffic Organization is funded via a hybrid structure comprised of user fees, excise taxes, and a general fund appropriation. Each of these funding sources would be based on the cost of specific services the ATO provides.[/FONT]
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[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Who would pay air traffic user fees?

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  1. [FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]Air traffic user fees would apply to commercial flights by turbine-powered aircraft (jets and turboprops). This includes flights by U.S. and foreign airlines, passenger and cargo carriers, charter operators, and regional airlines. Turbine-powered air taxi and fractional ownership flights would also pay these fees when they carry passengers for compensation.[/FONT]
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  1. • A small fraction of general aviation and commercial piston flights may be subject to a terminal user fee when they arrive or depart at one of a designated list of the 30 largest hub airports. These airports are the most congested terminal facilities. All are in metropolitan areas that have alternate airports where flights would not be subject to a user fee.
  1. If general aviation is not paying its fair share of the system’s costs under the current tax structure, why isn’t the Administration proposing user fees for GA as well?​
    1. • [FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]As the Administration consulted with stakeholders in developing the proposal, the general aviation stakeholders have been very clear that they would prefer a fuel tax to a user fee mechanism due to the fuel tax’s efficiency and simplicity. The high number of general aviation users would likely add cost and complexity to any user fee billing and collection system, and would increase the administrative burden on users, as opposed to simply paying into the system when they buy fuel.[/FONT]
    [FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]
    [/FONT]What is the rationale for the increased fuel tax levels proposed for general aviation?

    1. • [FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]The fuel tax rates are estimated to recover the air traffic costs allocated to the groups that would be paying the tax. We estimate that even with these increases, the federal fuel excise tax as a percentage of total aircraft operating costs will be less than 5%. This is significantly lower than the comparable percentage for commercial air transportation, and only slightly higher than the federal tax incidence rate for automobile travel.[/FONT]
    [FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]
    [/FONT]How will turbine (jets and turboprops) be affected relative to piston aircraft?
    1. • [FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]The proposed tax rates for jet fuel (used by turbine operators) and aviation gasoline (used by piston operators) are the same. A turbine operation generally uses significantly more fuel per operation, so turbine operations will provide significantly more funding for the system.[/FONT]
    [FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]
    [/FONT]Does it make sense to increase the fuel tax when the price of fuel is already so high?

    1. • [FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]The fuel tax is simply a [/FONT]mechanism [FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]to collect a given amount of revenue. If the proposal did not collect this revenue through the fuel tax, it would collect the same amount of money through another mechanism, which would have the same impact on overall operating costs.[/FONT]
    [FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]
    1. • The proposed fuel tax is a flat rate per gallon rather than based on the price of fuel; therefore, the current price of fuel is irrelevant.
    [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]From the looks of it, if I'm reading it right, GA will NOT be charged user fees and instead will get a slight bump to the fuel tax. Charter operators and fractionals that use turbines are going to take the hit, however. There also hasn't been a list of those 30 "congeted fee" airports published yet, but I would imagine it's the crazy places like ATL and ORD that a Cessna or Piper has no business going to anyway. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]My apologies for the funky formatting, copy and paste from a .pdf file doesn't seem to translate well into a forum editor. [/FONT]
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something I forgot to add. This stuff in the press release is all a proposal, it is NOT official and is NOT in active use until it gets pushed through Congress and signed off by the Prez. So for now everything is business as usual.
 
ATL and ORD that a Cessna or Piper has no business going to anyway.
??? No business going to? I know when things are congested, you probably won't get in but I thought all aircraft had the right to use them?
 
AOPA would have you think the sky is falling.

By the way, there's an article on user fees in this months AOPA magazine and will continue as a series as an attempt to educate their members and help fight this.

The bark may well be worse than the bite for most GA users, but it's a start down the slippery slope with potentially more encroachment to come.
 
??? No business going to? I know when things are congested, you probably won't get in but I thought all aircraft had the right to use them?


Kinda like my DE told me.." You are a private pilot. Don't go into class B airspace. You don't need to be there, and they don't want you there." I thought it was pretty good advice.
 
Kinda like my DE told me.." You are a private pilot. Don't go into class B airspace. You don't need to be there, and they don't want you there." I thought it was pretty good advice.

Plus it's gonna cost you a pretty penny to add some rubber.
 
??? No business going to? I know when things are congested, you probably won't get in but I thought all aircraft had the right to use them?

All aircraft do have the right to use them, but try explaining it when your Cessna 172 doing 80 knots down the approach at O'Hare causes delays for a few dozen airliners.
 
Keep this in mind as well that you may be declined clearance into their airspace so don't count on an arrival if that's your destination.
 
All aircraft do have the right to use them, but try explaining it when your Cessna 172 doing 80 knots down the approach at O'Hare causes delays for a few dozen airliners.


Not if I gott'er firewalled, buddy.

"Traffic is a Cessna 172 haulin' azz on the visual."
 

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