TangoWhiskey
Touchdown! Greaser!
In her speech yesterday (as printed in full on aero-news.net, and I encourage you all to read it in full), the proposed user fee structure seems reasonable. Only turbine passenger-carrying commercial flights will pay outright "fees"; general aviation will not pay fees for FSS briefings or landings (except at large hubs)--we will continue to pay our "share" through fuel taxes, as we've been doing. Here's a relevant portion:
Now the question is, how much will gas prices go up?
Marion Blakely said:The general aviation (GA) community and piston commercial operations would contribute their allocated share of air traffic control costs primarily via a fuel tax. We have considered stakeholder feedback from this community and accept the argument that the efficiency and simplicity of the fuel tax mechanism merit its continued use as the primary mechanism for GA's contribution to FAA funding. We identified the costs associated with these users and then set the fuel tax rates to recover those costs. We anticipate that just over 10 percent of the ATO's budget would come from these taxes, which would continue to be deposited in the Trust Fund and be subject to appropriation. The bill proposes periodically recalibrating the portion of the GA fuel tax dedicated to funding ATO based on updates to FAA's cost allocation study.
In addition to the fuel tax, GA and piston commercial flights may be subject to a terminal user fee when they arrive or depart at one of a limited number of large hub airports. In general, these airports are the most congested terminal facilities in the aviation system, and all users at congested facilities contribute to congestion for other users. Given that large hub airports are in metropolitan areas that have alternative airports, which would not be subject to this fee, we believe it is appropriate to apply fees to all users of the most congested airports.
Now the question is, how much will gas prices go up?
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