B/CA Show News - NBAA 2007 Day 2 - (Page 34)

N B A A 2 0 07 Congestion, & a User Fee War of Words Business aviation advocates and User fees, he said, would “kill the NAS in private jets “subsidized by same talking points in presenting taxpayers.” Huge numbers of busi- the funding revisions to Congress, their airline adversaries have farm team.” “The U.S. airline industry and ness jets were “clogging up the the overall industry and the public. stepped up their war of words on The airlines and FAA manageuser fees with widespread demands the Bush administration are sell- system,” ATA maintained, blaming ment have hooked their revised for business flyers to pay their “fair ing their case for user fees and them for congestion in the skies share,” and business aviation inter- airline tax relief to Congress and the and, especially, at the major airline funding proposals on ATC modernization, claiming that the only ests fighting what they see as a public with a variety of deceptive hub airports. The ferocity of the ATA’s cam- way the system can be revamped to concerted effort by the airlines to media that distort the facts concerntarnish their image and raise their ing business and GA’s use of the paign against business aviation was accommodate predicted increases in National Airspace System,” David influenced by the opposition the traffic over the next 15 years is to operating costs. The pressure is high. Ex-FAA Esler reported in a comprehensive Bush administration received in the mandate new funding mechanisms. administrator Marion Blakey wants 5,500-word article in the July issue House of Representatives to its They argue that the existing airline business aircraft operators to pay of Business & Commercial Aviation, original FAA reauthorization pro- ticket (excise) tax, the commercial more toward the agency’s NextGen the parent publication of Show News posal. Introduced into the House and GA fuel taxes, and 21% general last year, the bill called for estab- fund contributions are insufficient air traffic control system. The cur- (emphases added). The drive is spearheaded by the lishment of an undefined system to support both operation of the FAA rent tax system, she recently told Congress, “is unfair to commercial airlines’ trade association—the Air of user fees, as well as transferring and upgrading the ATC system. Current and former DOT airline passengers, while the inspectors generally support fastest growing segment of the existing revenue streams, aviation—business jets—is noting that if nothing were paying relatively little.” altered plenty of cash would AOPA president Phil still be available to underwrite Boyer has countered that the ATC modernization. “The airlines created their own administration’s proposed woes through over-schedullegislation is a solution in ing, with too many flights at search of a problem,” former the same time, causing conDOT Inspector General Ken gestion at hub airports. Meade told B&CA. Boyer said that general aviThe real initiative behind ation represents just a the modernization-funding fraction of the traffic at the scheme, GA advocates say, is busiest airports. C. Richard Anyone who flies commercial has experienced this—all the while never seeing a business jet. to shift the airlines’ tax burHale, president and CEO of den to business aviation, and not to Winner Aviation, reiterated that Transport Association. ATA’s cam- $1.7 billion to $2 billion of the airGA “supports modernization and is paign took shape in 2006 and gained lines’ tax burden to GA. Opposed pay for ATC upgrading or, espeready to help pay for it—through intensity this year as GA advocates by, among others, House Trans- cially, to benefit consumers. The other assertion that the airthe fuel taxes.” (Winner Aviation countered the ATA’s arguments with portation Committee Chairman lines have taken up through ATA is is at Booth 7666.) proof of GA’s service and value to J i m O b e r s t a r ( D - M i n n . ) a n d Scott Frantz, chairman of the American communities. ATA’s bipartisan leaders of the Senate that business aviation is the root board for Bradley International Air- attacks became more tightly focused Commerce, Science and Trans- cause of their delays at the major port, Windsor Locks, Conn., has on business aviation, which it portation Committee, the bill was commercial hubs and within the ATC system. Never mind that the urged Congress to stay away from characterized as “fat cats” and “jet- ultimately deemed DOA. Had it gone into law, the original vast majority of business aviation user fees, saying they are a bad idea. setting executives” co-opting the bill would have replaced the airlines’ operators choose to bypass the hubs 7.5% ticket tax with the user fee for reliever airports specifically to system, established another gov- avoid hub congestion and that FAA ernment bureaucracy to collect the statistics support this fact. ATA fees, and hiked the GA fuel tax by claims that hordes of business jets more than 200%, or from 21.8 cents are not only “clogging” the system a gallon for jet fuel to 70 cents a gal- but that thousands more are on the “All I want is that we at NetJets are treated no differently than any other lon. Although the FAA has denied horizon (the very light jets) prepar[FAA Part] 91 operator.” Says Richard Santulli, chairman and CEO of collusion with the ATA in drafting ing to ultimately overwhelm it. the 704-aircraft fractional operator. “We want to be treated as an owner, They also claim that the number the proposed legislation, it is interbecause that’s what we are, and that’s what our customers are.” esting to note that representatives of business jets, fueled by VLJ “Our owners should be treated as owners because that’s what of both entities, including adminis- development, is expected to grow they are.” trator Marion Blakey and ATA by some 10,000 over the next president Jim May, have used the decade and that business aviation Treat Us Like the Owners We Are, Says NetJets’ Santulli 34 September 26, 2007 www.aviationweek.com/shownews

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of B/CA Show News - NBAA 2007 Day 2

Contents Spectrum Stresses Freedom Adam Shows A700 Cabin User Fee War of Words Execujet Boosts Services Saab's Got Your Back CAE Covers the Field London Airports Roundup Pratt & Whitney Canada Another Show! A More Digital Jeppesen CMC Rides Bizjet Wave Thales Weighs In We Fly the Eclipse 500

B/CA Show News - NBAA 2007 Day 2

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