The Aviation Funding Stability Act (AFSA), introduced by Reps. Peter DeFazio and Rick Larsen, Democrats on the House Aviation Subcommittee, would require Airport and Airway Trust Fund income to be paid over to the FAA, providing the air traffic agency with more direct access to revenue collected from ticket taxes. A key argument in favor of ATC privatization had been that the FAA has suffered from lack of stable funding as a result of congressional gridlock, government shutdowns and sequestration. The DeFazio and Larsen proposal would continue to have the FAA funded from government coffers, but make FAA appropriations mandatory rather than subject to the whims of annual appropriation acts.
Rep. Larsen said in a press statement, “By providing certainty to the FAA’s funding streams and boosting reforms to the FAA’s personnel and procurement systems this bill presents an opportunity to accelerate modernization of the FAA, which is something I think folks on both sides of the aisle can get behind.” The AFSA comes closely on the heels of President Trump’s proposal to privatize the air traffic control system, which is supported by most of the major U.S. airlines—excluding Delta. A user fee funded system, like that proposed by President Trump, would likely reduce the costs now indirectly borne by airlines through ticket taxes as well as reduce airline delays by focusing air traffic management investment dollars on large commercial airports and reducing congestion from general aviation traffic.
Updated: A prior version of this article incorrectly described the nature of the funding mechanism for the Larsen/DeFazio proposal.
