Wimpie

IS THIS REAL?
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/09/19/392...n-opposes.html

1k650

Including every domestic flight?

Must be a typo - maybe it is a $10 tax ?

cordelli

They seem to be leaving out the part about the $100 being for corporate jets, and per jet not per passenger.


Sept. 19 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama’s administration proposed a $100 per-flight fee on corporate jets and other turbine-powered planes that use the U.S. air-traffic system.


Not sure how many people around here that will be an issue for.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...icit-plan.html

That's gonna be right up there with the death squads to kill old people

clrankin

So much for Mr. Obama not raising taxes on the middle class... Chalk that up to another "promise" he won't keep. (Not that the Republicrats in Congress have done a much better job of representing us...)

My question, though, related to a new departure tax and tripling the TSA security fee is this... Where are the airlines in this whole mess? Why aren't they paying?

Prior to 9/11, part of the ticket prices that each passenger paid went to paying for the private security that each airline provided. After the formation of TSA, this became a government function to which the airlines contributed little (if any) money - and yet ticket prices haven't come down.

Why is our government forcing passengers to pay these fees, when the most appropriate party for paying these fees should be the airlines? It seems a bit unfair, and certainly looks like another fairly large program of corporate welfare in effect - yet I haven't heard many complaining about this at all.

Ari

http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/19/politi...-fee-proposal/

And they mean $5 per one-way trip:

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireS...-plan-14559155

N1120A

In other words, this has very little effect on your every day traveler.

No change on the TSA tax for those who connect, $5 per RT on those who take non-stops. Not significant.

$100 per flight on corporate jets and other turbine powered aircraft. That may or may not mean commercial aircraft, which would also mean very little to an ordinary passenger.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

nachtnebel

Mr. Clrankin, please think about this. The airlines might get charged for this, but who will be doing the paying? That simply becomes another cost added to the price of your ticket. You will pay that. Just like when the price of jet fuel goes up. You pay for that too. You just won't KNOW that you're paying.

Wimpie

A better idea -
How about we make them operate on this 43% ????
Wouldn't that be plenty?

mikemey

I think we should eliminate the 43% they all ready get.

patom

Agreed!

Global_Hi_Flyer

Disagree.

Right now, general aviation receives lower priority in the ATC system, meaning that commercial flights get priority (and better handling). I've been in a corporate jet that spent 30 minutes holding outside MIA to accommodate a push of airline flights in and out, including some that spent a lot less time in the area than we (easy to track listening to ATC and comparing to online resources). It is not first-come, first-served.

If those GA planes have to pay a fee, they will be perfectly justified in requesting - or demanding - co-equal treatment, which will delay airline flights at some airports.

Further, if the fee has one of it's intended effects (reducing GA travel by making it more expensive), that will mean less traffic to some reliever airports (some of which are marginally funded now), reducing the number of relievers available. If relievers are closed, guess where those flights will go?

This one is bad for GA, and it's bad for airlines and passengers.

On a political bent, though, the airlines have wanted this for years - meaning that they're influencing the administration to a degree that they haven't been before.

Xyzzy

Which vendr is going to win the lucrative government contract to set up a payment system for this and how much of the total collected will go toward payment collection? The ESTA fee for US visa waiver payments collects $14 per foreigner, with $4 of that going to process payments. I doubt any vendor could do much better on a percentage basis than that shining example.

cordelli

The assumption that people will stop flying corporate jets because there will be a $100 fee and instead fly regular airlines totally cracks me up.

Sure, that will happen.

Yeah, should this pass all the corporate jets will stop flying.

mikeef

Personally, I'd meet them halfway and just eliminate the 57% overage, but I'm open to other ideas.

And if our fine feathered friends in Washington don't think that the increase in the security fee won't have a marginal effect on passenger volumes, they need a lesson in Econ 101.

Mike

FWAAA

Actually, the airlines are paying. They're paying all of it. Recall how most airlines did not reduce total prices during the short federal airline tax "holiday" this past July and August? They raised base fares by the amount of taxes not charged, giving some credence to the long-held belief that airlines shoulder all taxes charged on air travel.

Uhh, time for a fact check:

Under the Transportation Security Act (Nov 2001, created the TSA), airlines are required to pay to the TSA each year the amount they paid for private security prior to the formation of the TSA. The airlines and the TSA have argued about how much money that was, but the airlines have to contribute what they were paying for their private screening.

See above: Many economists believe that airlines already bear all of the taxes - if all airline travel taxes were eliminated, fares would rise to equal the current all-in price. Passengers are willing to pay a certain amount to travel by air and that amount isn't affected by how much of their price goes to governments or how much is retained by airlines.

Taxes on air travel have helped cause the multi-billion dollar losses of the past decade - but just like the war on drugs, we might as well stay the course for another decade or two before admitting failure.