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[quote user="schlimm"] BTW, the FAA alone typically has a budget of $14-16.7 Bil., much of it covered by ticket tax.  Airport improvements have averaged $13 Bil./yr., funded primarily by capital improvement bonds.  Though only some of these nearly $30 Bil. in costs come out of the airlines pockets, they still are having trouble even breaking even.  So clearly it costs a lot of subsidy to keep our essential air transport system operating.  I'm only saying some larger subsidy to have a decent up-to ~1000 mile passenger rail net is also needed.   We surely don't need more Superliner sleepers. [/quote] In FY08 the FAA required a General Fund transfer of approximately $2.7 billion to cover the difference between its budgeted costs and the receipts generated by ticket taxes and other revenues.  This gap (19 per cent) reflects the numbers for previous years.  Approximately 26 per cent of take-offs and landings controlled by the FAA involved the airlines, whilst 35 per cent of center traffic was attributable to airline traffic.  Contrary to popular belief, the airlines do not make up the majority of controlled air traffic movements in the U.S.  The biggest user is general aviation in all of its forms. The controlled movements are a pretty good indication of the percentage of all air facilities, i.e. airways, airports, buildings, etc. used by commercial carriers.  Of course, in some locations, e.g. LaGuardia, Kennedy, DFW, a higher percentage of the traffic is commercial air, but in many other locations, e.g. Austin, Dallas Love Field, El Paso, the percentage of traffic attributable to commercial air carriers is lower than the national average. On a prorated basis, the amount of the federal transfer attributable to commercial airline operations was in the neighborhood of $826 million.  In addition, the Essential Air Services Program required a General Fund transfer of approximately $141 million, whilst the TSA required a transfer of approximately $1.6 billion to close the gap between the security fees paid by airline passengers and the cost of providing airport screening.  All up the general fund transferred approximately $2.6 billion for FAA activities used by the commercial airlines that were not covered by fees and taxes.  This amounted to an average federal subsidy per airline traveler of $3.92 or .45 cents per passenger mile.  For comparative purpose, Amtrak's got an average system subsidy of $48.50 per passenger and 22.61 cents per passenger mile. The cost of constructing airports in the United States has been covered for the most part through the issuance of tax free, municipal bonds.  They are usually issued by an airport authority.  The bonds are serviced from landing fees, vendor revenues, fees and investments.  The ability to finance airport construction with tax free bonds means that the costs are lower than they would have been had the airport authorities been required to issue fully taxable bonds.  These lower costs can be passed on to the airlines, as well as all users, in the form of lower landing fees.  However, the spread between fully taxable bonds and tax free bonds, depending on when they were issued, is not as significant as might be imagined.  Moreover, what a commercial operator saves in lower landing fees, as well as other fees, would be made up in part by the higher taxes paid on higher than otherwise taxable income.
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