Nationwide Newspaper Calls For Aviation User Fees

AOPA defended general aviation to the rest of the world on Thursday, after a USA Today editorial claimed airline passengers "subsidize" general aviation. In an opposing view piece published alongside the paper's editorial, AOPA President Phil Boyer explained to USA Today readers that the current system is a single structure, designed for the airlines.

"Our elected representatives in Congress wisely created a national air transportation system," Boyer wrote. And just as trucks — which place a greater strain on the national highway system — pay higher taxes and fees than family cars, the airlines must carry a greater portion of the financial burden for the nation's air traffic control system.

The USA Today editorial was prompted by and uses much of the same rhetoric as an editorial that Northwest Airlines CEO Richard Anderson wrote for his airline's in-flight magazine. In fact, it quotes the article in suggesting that other facets of aviation subsidize GA. Further, the article suggests airline passengers are paying a big part of that subsidy.

USA Today agreed, saying that "government studies show that the approximately $190 million a year in fuel taxes paid by "general aviation," as non-commercial flights are known, don't come close to covering the services these planes use."

Responding to the USA Today op-ed piece, Boyer said, "Virtually all of the problems with the air traffic control system cited in the USA Today editorial are problems of the airlines' own making. The delays that the FAA and the airlines are already forecasting for this summer are largely due to the hub-and-spoke system that the major airlines rely on. The hub-and-spoke system creates unrealistic arrival and departure schedules at the major hub airports. Summertime storms only compound the problem."

The EAA also responded to the USA Today editorial with an op-ed piece of its own, posted on the organizations website. The EAA piece blasted USA Today for depicting "all general-aviation operators as "well-heeled" and alluding to the "private-plane lobby" that is preventing user-fee operations to be established. Part of EAA’s mission of protecting the right to fly includes ensuring that recreational aviation participants are not burdened with unfair expenses for facilities and services they rarely, if ever, use."

"It is apparent that USA Today is pandering to its large readership that travels through the nation’s major airport terminals," said Earl Lawrence, EAA’s Vice President of Government and Industry Relations. "General aviation operations are not causing municipalities to build expensive new terminals, longer runways and parking garages. Airline operations are. And those tremendously expensive facilities are being paid for by those who demand those facilities and services - the airlines and their passengers."

AOPA says the USA Today editorial is incorrect in claiming most GA flights use air traffic control separation services. In fact, the vast majority of GA flights are conducted under visual flight rules, requiring only minimal contact with controllers and placing almost no direct burden on the system.

"The air traffic control system is designed to serve the airlines," wrote Boyer in USA Today. "Most small planes use few, if any, of these services.

"The airlines pay a modest federal fuel tax of four cents a gallon. Conversely, general aviation flights fund their use of the system through a fuel tax five times what the airlines pay."

"We concur with Phil Boyer’s counterpoint editorial," Lawrence said. "We would add that EAA members, who mostly pursue recreational aviation activities in day VFR conditions, use primarily noncommercial airports and even fewer services during their flying. That means if the USA Today proposal were to become reality, these pilots would be paying a higher, disproportionate share of the expense for something they rarely use."

FMI: USA Today Editorial, Boyer's Response, EAA Response