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Legislation would increase air ticket fees
By Paul Leavitt, with staff and wire reports Passenger fees that are added to the cost of air tickets would increase 50% under legislation expected to reach the Senate floor this week. The "passenger facility charge" is essentially a $3 departure tax that airports can charge to help pay for local airport services and improvements. The total fee is capped at $12 for a round-trip ticket. The bill would raise the fee to $4.50 per airport and cap the total at $18 per round-trip ticket. The bill also would allow more flights at three tightly controlled airports by lifting slot restrictions under a 30-year-old "high density rule." One slot is a takeoff or landing. The rule would expire in 2002 at Chicago O'Hare International Airport and in 2007 at New York's La Guardia and John F. Kennedy airports. The bill would add 24 slots at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and would relax a rule that limits flights to less than 1,250 miles. At least half the new slots would be reserved for longer flights. The changes are part of a three-year, $40 billion aviation funding bill that has been stalled since last year in a dispute over use of federal ticket tax money that goes into the Aviation Trust Fund. House Transportation Chairman Bud Shuster, R-Pa., wants all that money, which is about $10 billion a year, to be separated from the general federal treasury so that it would have to be used for aviation purposes. Some senators say that would undercut the authority of budget and appropriation committees to determine spending each year. Under a proposed compromise, the money would stay in the general budget, but spending
for aviation would at least total the amount of money collected in the trust fund plus
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