Well, the Senate Commerce Committee Finally ...

... got an aviation funding bill passed this week. The FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act (S. 1451) is a two-year bill that incorporates traditional funding mechanisms and places an emphasis on NextGen implementation and pilot safety. Enjoy the two-year hiatus. The industry should fully expect that the Obama Administration will try to reinvent the aviation and airport industry and how the system is funded (as with nearly everything else it touches) with some far-reaching proposals being leaked about a year from now. The current cash cow, the Airport and Airway Trust Fund, isn’t being replenished at historic rates due to the dramatic economic downturn. Therein will be a central part of the argument for “change.†For airports, the good news is that the Senate bill does not call for more stringent aircraft rescue and firefighting (ARFF) requirements that airports estimate would cost billions without improving safety, and it calls for funding the Airport Improvement Program (AIP) at some $4 billion each year. The previously passed U.S. House bill (H.R. 915) calls for the new ARFF standards. On the bad news side … ignoring the need to increase the cap on passenger facility charges (PFCs), currently at $4.50. The House bill calls for raising the cap to $7. Airports fought for $7.50, with the cap indexed for inflation. As always, the Air Transport Association continues to fight hard against PFC increases, even though it can be argued that the airlines are the single biggest beneficiary of the user fees. Meanwhile, ATA has been virtually silent on the ARFF proposal, despite the reality that the airlines would be major players in shouldering the cost. (Regarding PFCs, ATA argues that this is no time to be increasing costs to customers; yet, I paid $15 to check my bag this morning. Must be just a matter of which ‘costs’.) The U.S. aviation/airline community is on the verge of reinventing itself. Two years from now, we may have a clearer picture of where it’s all headed. We’ll need it because change is coming. The question that will need to be asked is: Do we want a change led by industry or do we want Obama change? For a brief period, industry can breathe a collective sigh of relief over the fact that Congress is actually moving on aviation reauthorization. However, don’t toss out the oxygen masks just yet. Thanks for reading. jfi