With AIN Media Group's Aviation International News and its predecessor Aviation Convention News celebrating the company's 50th year of continuous publication this year, AIN’s editorial staff is going back through the archives each month to bring readers some interesting events that were covered over the past half-century.
REWIND (MARCH 2007): General aviation’s concerns found a firm basis last month when the FAA presented a reauthorization proposal that includes a more than 300 percent hike in the fuel tax and myriad fees for obtaining a pilot’s license, registering an aircraft, or receiving a medical.
It would also institute new user fees for GA flights that pass through airspace within several miles of large airports. All domestic commercial and GA users would pay a fuel tax of 13.6 cents per gallon (included in the 70-cent increase) to fund the Airport Improvement Program, the Essential Air Service Program, and the FAA’s R&D.
FAST-FORWARD: The threat of the institution of user fees has come and gone several times over the past few decades, and in 2007, the topic became industry front-page fodder for months, with all the major alphabet general aviation groups coalescing in opposition to it. The proposal, which would have shifted much of the air traffic control funding burden from airline passengers to GA operators, spurred a bitter political lobbying debate between the GA and commercial sectors, complete with an airline association-funded media campaign, which stereotyped business aircraft users as globetrotting fat-cat corporate executives.
The Senate struck user fees from its initial FAA reauthorization legislation in May of that year, and the House similarly rejected them in September. A series of continuing resolutions were passed throughout the following year that left the matter unresolved; then both the House and Senate stepped forward with their FAA reauthorization plans (user fees omitted) in 2009. In 2010, the House and Senate each passed—and later reconciled—their versions of FAA reauthorization without user fees, and preserving fuel taxes. A single bill went to the White House for signing. The specter of user fees would rise again over the next several years and then again fade away.
