Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Wednesday that a passenger fee could be considered as a way to provide steady funding for FAA system upgrades.
Speaking at a transportation safety conference hosted by American Airlines in Fort Worth, Texas, Duffy said the nation’s aviation infrastructure needs a better way to ensure ongoing support for long-term modernization efforts beyond periodic funding from Congress. He said a dedicated revenue stream could help fund major aviation infrastructure projects and keep systems from falling behind after the current round of upgrades.
“I would welcome an opportunity to think through how [we could] have a small fee that went into us, and I want us to continually upgrade our systems,” Duffy said, according to AirlineGeeks.
He compared the idea to the September 11 Security Fee, which is added to airline tickets and currently sits at $5.60 per one-way trip originating at a U.S. airport. Duffy did not provide a proposed amount, timeline or formal plan for a new fee, and any new passenger charge would likely require congressional approval.
This has to be the most inefficient project in the history of federal projects and that’s saying a lot. It’s basically a career long project for some software developers amongst other things. Extend, add funding, extend……..
So it is time to ask the economists if airline faire pricing is elastic or inelastic! Meaning, will more people buy airline tickets if the price goes up or not. I believe less people will buy airlines tickets if the price of a ticket goes up. Meaning Secretary Duffy is shooting himself in the foot with such a proposal. Or, specifically, airlines ticket pricing appears inelastic; or increasing pricing will put a downward direction on the number of people who fly! The airlines will probably berate Secretary Duffy for such a proposal!
So, we already pay for an inefficient, ridiculous FAA and put up with their ineptitude. Now, we will pay an extra fee to fund the ineptitude further? Why don’t we just hire someone to run the FAA that understands the issues and fixes them? Truly, aviation is getting dangerous esp for the general aviation group
Airline passengers already pay a 7.5% tax on tickets and a $4.10 fee per flight segment into the Airports and Aviation Trust Fund that is used to support the air traffic control system. For cargo shippers there is also a waybill tax that goes into the same fund.