Americans complain about fees added to their airline fares. But they also complain about old and ... [+]
How badly do you want better airports? Bad enough to pay, maybe $9 more per roundtrip when you fly?
That, in a nutshell, is the argument – or at least part of it - that’s supposed to be going on right now under that big white dome in Washington, D.C. Despite all the talk on cable and the nightly news about trade wars, immigration, the 2020 presidential elections, China, Russia, the Middle East and identity politics, lawmakers in Washington at least say that they’re focused right now on national infrastructure needs. And along with plans to repair and improve the nation’s roads and rails, a bipartisan coalition in Congress and the Trump administration generally agree that the time is right to raise the cap on what local airports can charge travelers every time they depart from, arrive at or pass through those facilities.
Whether that and other infrastructure-focused ideas actually gets passed into law is anybody’s guess. Last year it appeared at this point that a measure raising the limit on “Passenger Facility Charges,” or PFCs, charged to consumers who use airports was a sure thing. But the idea of increasing the PFC cap wound up being sacrificed to the gods of political expediency last year in order to reach agreement in Congress on a bill re-authorizing the Federal Aviation Administration and its budget. That deal ended years of the FAA operating the nation’s airways and aviation safety monitoring program on a string of short-term emergency funding bills and without the ability to do long-term financial planning.
Currently there’s no actual bill pending in Congress to increase the maximum amount that airports can charge in PFCs. But Rep. Peter De Fazio (D-OR), who took over in January as chairman of the House’s Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, says raising the PFC cap is his top priority this year. And that has the nation’s airlines scared. They’ve recently launched a new, industry-wide public relations effort aimed at defeating such a bill once De Fazio or one of his like-minded colleagues introduces it.
And the airlines, working mostly through the primary lobby group, Airlines For American, or “A4A,” will be asking the half of the nation’s total residents who travel by commercial airline at least once a year to join them in the fight to keep the lid on PFCs. Congress authorized local airports to begin charging PFCs to help fund airport passenger facilities’ upkeep and expansion 39 years ago. But the amount that can be charged has been raised only once in all that time. Today airports can charge up to $4.50 per passenger each way. And most do. Several charge PFCs but set the fee below the $4.50 maximum allowed by Congress. And a handful charge no PFCs.
Beyond that, if a traveler passes through multiple airports on the same trip, he or she can be charged PFCs by a maximum of two airports. Thus, a round trip involving an intermediate stop each way can add up to $18 to the cost of the flight.
Airlines, not surprisingly, long have argued that PFCs add so much to the cost of air travel that a significant percentage of would-be passengers opt not to fly because of the added cost. They also argue that most airports don't really need the extra revenue from higher PFC fees; that they are having little or no difficulty in accessing relatively cheap financing or additional revenue from airport shops and restaurants to add gates, terminals and other traveler-friendly features and facilities.
But, increasingly it seems like the airlines are being ganged up on. Hotels, rental car companies and other travel service providers, along with airport vendors, local and national Chambers of Commerce and other business groups, an amalgam of liberal, conservative and libertarian think tanks and leaders in both big political parties are all lining up in favor of doubling the cap on PFCs. A few go even further by supporting the elimination of any cap in favor of allowing market forces and competition to drive airports’ individual decisions on how much to charge travelers who use their facilities.
Though the Trump administration has taken no public position on raising the PFC cap, the President has been visibly pushing for a big new, expensive infrastructure bill and, therefore, is not seen as a likely impediment to the lifting of the PFC limits.
The politicians actually like the idea of raising the cap on PFC charges. Doing that means they don’t have to vote to raise taxes on travelers. Rather, they merely empower local airports to decide how much more, within limits, they want to charge travelers for using those local facilities.
Other travel companies and local economic boosters around the country like the idea raising the limit on PFCs, too. After all, they aren't the companies that have to levy those PFC fees on travelers, but they do get to share in the benefits of new or modernized airport facilities that those PFCs help finance. And they hope that all that new construction work and, hopefully, increased traffic caused in part by better facilities will drive gains in economic vitality both at the national and local levels.
Meanwhile, the airlines' arguments that adding a maximum of $18 to an individual’s travel cost - enough to cause some to stay home - rings hollow. After all the carriers themselves charge travelers $30 to check a bag, $15 just to book a trip online or select a seat in advance, or $100 to change flights with zero concern about those charges dousing travel demand.
That does not mean that there aren’t any good reasons to oppose raising the PFC limit. In most cases around the nation, airport owners – cities or city-created authorities for the most part – have plenty of access to the financial resources needed to maintain their airports or grow them to keep up demand. What’s questionable, in some cases, is why they haven't used those resources all along to keep their airports up-to-date? In most large cities with cramped, crumbling or inadequate airports those problems are the result of decisions made over the year by the airport authorities themselves, or by local politicians to spend money addressing other matters, including pet political projects or unnecessarily lavish projects unrelated to their airports. (Note: with only a few exceptions most airport are forbidden to spend federal grant money and PFC-generated revenue on off-airport projects. But money generated from parking fees, on-airport hotel and restaurant taxes, and other on-airport sources often can be spent however those in real power decide. That sometimes leads to situation in which airport facilities and the needs of the travelers who pay all that money being neglected.)
The airlines opposed to raising the cap on PFCs do have several valid points supporting their position. But their hands are far from clean in this debate. And they clearly are outnumbered and out-gunned. As a result, 2019 may well be, finally, the year that passengers begin paying as much as double what they previously paid for the right to fly from, to or even just through most U.S. airports.
