The argument over user fees for general aviation activities doesn’t seem to be going away. The President keeps putting them back into his budget proposals. Outside the U.S., user fees have had significant effects on GA activities in other countries. A recent article (http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/newsitems/1999/99-2-002.html) highlighting significant increases in New Zealand, an example that should scare us here in the U.S.
The concept of user fees has seen strong opposition by aviation organizations, the strongest opponent being AOPA, and the vast majority of the GA community, but that opposition hasn’t made the discussion go away. Perhaps it is time we think about this differently. What if we had to live with some sort of a user fee? Is there any user fee structure that we could manage, one that would actually do something positive for our aviation community? Many different proposals have been discussed ranging from pay for access to airspace to landing fees, per flight fees and flight plan fees. In many of these proposals unintended consequences would be difficult to foresee, but some simple ones may be easily forecasted. Continue reading