Don Frano Talks About Misuse Of ADS-B By Third-Party Fee Tracker

Jim Campbell Editor in Chief of Aero-News, talked with Don Frano, a pilot safety advocate who describes what’s going on with landing fees at Kissimmee Gateway Airport (KISM) in Orlando, Florida. The airport recently passed landing fees he says are one of the most aggressive around, especially toward light GA. He said it feels like the push is to get GA out of the airport. They’re charging $3 per every thousand pounds, plus they’re also charging for touch and gos.

The one thing the airport gave was one free landing per day for every aircraft that’s below 5,000 pounds.
Jim asked, “Does that count bounces?” and Don said “That’s a good question because I doesn’t know and I’d love to have the answer to that one. If they could they would I’m sure.”

Don said the measuring tools being used are not exactly accurate and there have been more than one report of some who are getting bills for missed approaches and go-arounds.

While attending public meetings at the airport, Don said he found out they’re using a third-party company called Vector Airport Systems. Vector uses ADS-B data, which was meant for safety, to monitor the traffic in and out of airports.

Jim said ADS-B data was not meant or supposed to be used for tax collection or any other fee-based services. Don agreed 100% and said the deeper you dig, the worse it gets.

They’re misusing ADS-B data to track the airplane going into the airport to charge landing fees, but the billing goes to the aircraft owner, not the pilot. And those bills are begin sent weeks after the fact. So imagine you’re an aircraft owner, or own a fleet of aircraft like in a rental arrangement. So you have 5-6 guys flying the plane, maybe you own 10 or 12 planes, and they’re all flying around every day, and at the end of a six-week period you get a bulk bill. So then you’re trying to figure out who owes what for which landings, etc and it’s a logistical nightmare.

Don’s been trying to get the conversation out there to try to make people aware of what’s going on and that ADS-B needs to be used for safety and safety alone. There is an additional petition similar to what AOPA did to protect the use of ADS-B.

There are several things pilots can do to fight against this.

There is a facebook group, “ADS-B Tracked Billing Has Begun” and one of the features is that there’s a list of known airports that Vector has been using so pilots can gain awareness of those.

There’s a website set up called “www.stopadsbabuse.com “ and there’s also a petition pilots can sign, go to “change.org” and search for “Calling on the FAA to halt the use of ADS-B data for billing.” The link is below.

That petition can use all the signatures it can get so please go sign it. It would be huge to be able to take 5,000 -10,000 signatures to the FAA and say here’s the voice of the pilots.

The biggest concern Don has is that the first knee-jerk thing pilots might do when they become aware of this is to turn off their ADS-B, and he strongly recommends against doing that. First, it’s illegal and second, it makes flying less safe for everyone, and pilots need to have confidence in the ADS-B system. And that’s the bottom line: using ADS-B data like this is anti-safety.

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