Business & GA

Owners gear up for battle as Department of Transportation considers alternatives

Jet fuel usage may become the yardstick by which future US airspace user charges are calculated, according to a US Department of Transportation (DoT) internal memorandum.

This is just one of many means under consideration for determining how to distribute charges among airspace users, but they are all based on the common assumption that there needs to be an audit of Federal Aviation Administration costs in running the National Airspace System (NAS).

Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association chief executive Phil Boyer and National Business Aircraft Association chief executive Ed Bolen are accelerating their joint lobbying to fight what they see as an airline industry attempt to offset charges to carriers by shifting more of them to general aviation.

Bolen points out that measuring jet fuel usage as a means of determining charges - if it were the option chosen - implies that business and corporate aviation, in particular, are seen as easy targets.

The DoT memo - from assistant inspector general for competition and economic analysis David Tornquist - states that the Office of the Inspector General "plans to conduct an audit of users of the NAS". This would aim to determine "who currently uses the NAS, how that usage affects the FAA's costs, and how closely the alternatives mirror use of FAA services".

According to Tornquist, the audit will examine:

• who uses the different elements of the NAS throughout a typical day
• whether these users can be grouped in a meaningful manner based on system use
• how each group's use of the system contributes to the FAA's costs
• how good a proxy jet fuel consumption is for use of FAA air traffic services.

At present, says Tornquist, the FAA's expenditure comes from excise taxes and user fees. The need for change, which the FAA appears to have embraced, is intended to fund investment in the NAS that is needed over the next 20 years or so as the technology and systems for managing air traffic change dramatically.