Posted on 04/04/2006 7:14:08 AM PDT by Cat loving Texan
The dogfight is occurring at such a rarefied policy altitude that you can't hear it from the ground.
But the dispute over how to pay for the federal air traffic control system, essentially a fight between two aviation business sectors, figures to come down to cloud level before Congress acts on a 10-year reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration in mid-2007.
The resolution in the end could mean slightly lower airline ticket prices — though maybe not — and greater expenses for private jets. It could also lead to a more powerful, satellite-based air traffic control system that could make flying safer, allow the FAA to operate with fewer controllers and reduce delays in bad weather.
The major passenger and cargo airlines have proposed going from a tax-based system of funding the FAA — through ticket, cargo and fuel taxes — to one based on actual usage of the air traffic control system, including usage by small jets and turbo-prop planes that fly high enough to be under the guidance of FAA controllers.
Private gasoline-powered prop planes, which generally fly low and interact little with the FAA towers, would not be hit with the user fees. The point would be to increase revenue for the FAA and redistribute the burden of paying for those federal services.
Who should pay?
Under the major carriers' proposal, dubbed "Smart Skies," there would be a set charge for an airplane's takeoff, for a departure, for a flight conducted under instrument flight rules or for other services from the FAA.
The charges probably would be the same for a jumbo jet carrying 300 passengers and a corporate jet carrying a handful of company executives. The logic, from the airlines' point of view, is that it costs the air traffic control system just as much to talk that small plane through bad weather from Chicago to Los Angeles as it does a Boeing 737 airliner.
Airlines "use about 70 percent of the air traffic control system, and they pay over 90 percent," said David Castelveter, spokesman for the Air Transport Association, which represents the airlines and big cargo carriers. "We're looking for a simple funding mechanism that would fairly charge everyone who uses the air traffic control system."
What the airlines are proposing "would be the death of general aviation," said Phil Boyer, president of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, the main advocacy group for private-plane owners.
Though the plan as proposed would change nothing for owners of small, gasoline-powered planes, which some refer to as weekend fliers, the groups representing them are fighting the plan. Bring in the small jets now, they charge, and their planes will be next.
No, airline advocates say, they have no hidden agenda to slap fees on the weekenders.
At Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, about 57 percent of the 210,000 takeoffs and landings in 2005 were airliners and cargo planes, and 39 percent were general aviation planes. The airport could not provide a breakout for gasoline-powered and jet-fueled general aviation flights.
Are flat taxes unfair?
The FAA, which has submitted a so-far confidential proposal to the White House, supports going to a user-fee-based system, if not necessarily the airlines' specific plan.
"The way the current trust fund is, with a flat ticket tax, it does not match what it actually takes to operate the system," FAA spokesman Greg Martin said. "It might as well be tied to the cost of milk."
Martin said the FAA proposal probably will be made public later this spring.
Right now, airlines charge passengers a tax on the base ticket price, as well as a "segment" tax for every leg of the trip.
The proceeds, along with money from a 4.3 cents per gallon fuel tax, goes to the FAA's aviation trust fund. That fund, in turn, pays for the FAA's operating and capital costs.
From cargo operators, the trust fund gets a 6.25 percent tax on what the operators charge for carrying goods.
General aviation pilots, meanwhile, whether they're flying their private Cessna or a corporate jet, pay a fuel tax: 19.3 cents a gallon for aviation gasoline and 21.8 cents a gallon for jet fuel.
Under Smart Skies, approved unanimously by 19 airlines and cargo carriers earlier this month, commercial flights, cargo carriers and general aviation jets would begin paying user fees instead, and the ticket and fuel taxes for jets would go away.
Gasoline-powered planes — about 80 percent of the country's 215,000 general aviation aircraft — would continue to pay only the fuel tax, at least under the current version of the Smart Skies proposal.
'A can of worms'
Jay Carpenter, owner of Austin Chem-Dry and a private-plane owner, said the Smart Skies proposal, by excluding such planes, is cleverly conceived to divide the general aviation community.
"So the little fish are going, 'Hey, it doesn't affect me, it's just the guys in the corporate jets,' " said Carpenter, president of the Texas Aviation Association. "But it opens the door."
Under this theory, the airlines and the FAA will just come back in 10 years, the next time the FAA would be up for reauthorization by Congress, and net all those little fish as well. Then a private-plane owner, rather than being able to make a short hop to Houston for just the cost of the fuel, might have to pay several hundred dollars for help in bad weather from air traffic controllers.
So they might instead try to fly under the clouds without help, Carpenter said, possibly with tragic results. Small planes are already about 50 times more likely to have an accident than a commercial plane, according to FAA statistics.
As for the ticket tax (7.5 percent of the base ticket price) and segment charges ($3.30 per leg of each trip), those would go away under Smart Skies, Carpenter isn't holding his breath that airline prices would drop as a consequence.
"It's opening a can of worms," Carpenter said, "and once those worms start coming out, you won't ever be able to get them back in."
FAA's funding slips
None of this has been put into legislation for now, and it probably won't be until a new Congress convenes next year. The current FAA authorization expires Sept. 30, 2007.
In addition to changing the way revenue is raised, the government would have to take in significantly more than the $11.9 billion expected this year, for two reasons.
The FAA is spending about $2 billion more each year than the fuel, cargo and ticket taxes generate. In the past, the FAA trust fund has been used to bridge the gap, but by last year, there was less than $2 billion left in the fund.
This drawdown has come even as the FAA has tightened its belt. Spending by the agency has been essentially level for five years. The post-Sept. 11 falloff in commercial traffic cut FAA revenue right along with revenue to the airlines.
In addition to the revenue shortfall, both sides agree that FAA spending will have to increase significantly in the coming years. The FAA air traffic control system tracks aircraft with radar. But officials are working on a next generation system that instead would depend on satellites. The cost: unknown, but very, very large, officials say.
"What we now have to come to grips with," Castelveter said, "is how do you pay for it and how do you pay for it fairly?"
bwear@statesman.com; 445-3698
Ping.
Maybe they should go out on strike.
If they want the Constitution to include such a "regulatory" agency, then amend the Constitution.
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