USER FEES GET COLD SHOULDER IN HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE HEARING

Some of the first salvos in the latest user-fee battle were fired last week in a House aviation subcommittee hearing room. The committee called officials from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the privatized air traffic control systems of Canada and Germany. But so far there seems to be little support on this committee for going down the same path in the United States. On a cost-per-operation basis, most of the supposedly more “efficient” privatized systems cost a lot more than the FAA’s government-run, tax-supported air traffic control system. As it turns out, the average controller in the United States handles about 3,500 IFR operations each year at a cost of $172 each. By comparison, in Germany the average controller handles only 490 operations at a cost of $390 each. See AOPA Online.