Florida Airports Lining Up To Impose New Fees

A new proposal to impose landing fees and use ADS-B data for invoicing operators at several Florida GA airports is drawing criticism from the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA). It’s unclear what the revenue from the fees, many tentatively set at $3 per 1,000 pounds of aircraft weight, would be used for. AOPA points out that local taxpayers pay a minimal amount to support airports that are largely federally funded.

The initiative is incentivized by new technological capability to invoice operators based on ADS-B data. AOPA said in a statement that Florida contracted with a company named Virtower, which has a strategic partnership with Vector Airport Systems to use Virtower’s ADS-B data to automatically invoice aircraft operators. Vector has been reaching out to Florida airport sponsors to pitch its services.

In its statement, AOPA wrote, “[ADS-B data] was never intended to be used to collect fees, or to enable aircraft tracking by third parties. AOPA is considering legislative action to make sure ADS-B data is used solely for its intended purpose.” The fees could be imposed as early as Oct. 1 throughout the state “as local officials race to take advantage of a newly available opportunity.”

And the fees could set in motion a domino effect. John Eiff, airport manager at DeLand Airport, said at a public meeting that his intent in imposing the fees is to deter an influx of traffic from other nearby airports that are imposing the fees. He said, “The primary reason we are even considering a landing fee is to protect ourselves from other airports that are signing up for this. We’ve got Orlando Executive, Kissimmee, Flagler, Ormond Beach and us that are considering landing fees. If we do not impose landing fees, airplanes that are using the other airports and paying landing fees, they will choose to come to DeLand and saturate our pattern to an unsafe level. For us to add a landing fee is kind of protection against this.” 

AOPA Southern Regional Manager Stacey Heaton said, “The city and county governments considering these new landing fees have been conspicuously silent about the fact that these airports appear to be in good financial condition, and they’ve received $67 million in federal grants, collectively, over the past decade. This is misguided and stands to devastate the flight training industry and local Florida pilots.”