With a new cost-cutting budget proposal from President Donald Trump expected on Thursday, general aviation advocates took the offensive on Monday and sent a letter to Congress asking them to protect funding for contract towers. NBAA, AOPA and eight other groups sent a letter to Congress asking them to fully fund the towers in the FAA appropriations bill for this year. President Trump’s proposal is expected to include $54 billion in budget cuts and dramatically reduce the federal workforce, according to news reports from The Hill and The Washington Post. The contract-tower program needs at least $159 million, according to the letter. All controllers who work in the contract facilities are certified by the FAA, and meet the same training and operational standards as FAA-employed controllers.
The program saves the FAA about $200 million per year while providing essential services, the letter states. “The bottom line is that, absent this highly successful partnership, many local communities and smaller airports would not receive the significant safety benefits of ATC services,” the letter (PDF) concludes. Contract towers now number 253 in 46 states, and handle 28 percent of all tower operations in the U.S., yet the contract towers account for only about 14 percent of FAA’s overall budget for control-tower operations, according to NBAA. Back in 2013, the FAA threatened to close the 149 contract towers that serve smaller GA airports, but advocates lobbied successfully to save them. Since then, every year at budget time, advocacy groups rally once again to be sure the budget makers don’t forget about these towers.
