Stresses Fees Would NOT Be Imposed For Flying Through
Terminal Airspace
In a telephone conversation with Aero-News last week,
representatives with the Federal Aviation Administration rebuked
many of the points presented by the Alliance for Aviation Across
America, in that group's rebuttal to the FAA's policy document released April
23 on the subject of user fees. Over the next several
days, ANN will present those arguments, and the FAA's contrasting
position on each issue.
As Aero-News reported, the
Alliance says the FAA's bill clearly designates user fee taxes may
be administered on any aircraft flying through Class B or any other
type of terminal airspace, including small planes. But FAA
Economist Weingart emphatically states the FAA has no plans to do
so.
"We don't propose to include fees for GA to fly through Class
B," Weingart tells ANN, "or any other type of airspace. The intent
in everything we've been saying about the proposal is the fees
would only apply to GA if they actually land or depart at a large
hub airport.
"As we said in the Fact Sheet... we recognize based on the
feedback from the stakeholder community some of the legislative
language on that isn't as clear as we intended. We are certainly
agreeable on suggestions on how to clarify that language."
"And you would not be charged any fees for weather services, or
flight following, or any of that," added Melanie Alvord, Assistant
Administrator for Communications. "Because that is safety related,
we included it in the General Fund contributions to funding."
The FAA also takes issue with the Alliance's claim that the
FAA's proposal calls for $1.36 billion to be appropriated for
services to collect user fees in the first 60 days.
"That has nothing to do with administrative costs of billing and
collecting those fees," Weingart said. "What we realized in
developing the proposal that we'd have a one-time transition issue,
because today the excise taxes -- which are primarily ticket taxes
on airline tickets -- get paid to the government before the
airplane flies (as tickets are often purchased beforehand --
Ed.)
"Under a user fee system, typically we would bill after the
service is provided," he continues, "and like most bills, you would
have 20 days or 30 days to pay. So the revenues from user fees
would actually be flowing in probably one month to two months after
the service is provided -- so we have a one-time gap in revenue
that needs to be filled, and that's what that $1.36 billion is
intended to do.
"In fact, there is actually a provision in the bill that
requires us to pay back that $1.36 billion in the first year of the
new system."
Coming Wednesday -- The FAA Says Congress Will NOT Lose
Oversight Privileges