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[quote user="blue streak 1"] [quote user="Sam1"]As I pointed out in another post, the commercial airlines account for approximately 30 per cent of the FAA's operations, although it is greater at the relatively small number of the nation's hub airports, e.g. DFW, Kennedy, etc[/quote]  Sam: the other 70% is general aviation (private aircraft and corporate aircraft) which at the most only contributes 10% of the cost. How is that factored in?   [/quote] The 2009 FAA budget included a $2.7 billion transfer from the federal general fund to close the gap between the Aviation Trust Fund's receipts and the FAA's anticipated costs.  It is approximately 19 per cent of the FAA's budget.  How the $2.7 billion is allocated amongst the FAA's activities is a cost accounting issue.  It is not a revenue allocation exercise. Costs are a function of their underlying drivers, which are the activities that give rise to the cost?  In the case of FAA Operations, the major driver is the number of flights controlled by the agency.  If there were no flights, no costs would be incurred for operations.     The FAA controls thousands of flights every day. Approximately 30 per cent of them are airline flights.  This is a reasonable basis for the allocation of the $2.7 billion, i.e. 30 per cent of the transfer or subsidy is allocated to the airlines.     The airlines claim that they pay more than 30 per cent of the cost of the FAA's operations, which they say is unfair because they use only 30 per cent of the capacity.  I have read several articles that support this view, although I have never seen any that claim the airlines pay 90 per cent of the cost of the FAA's operations.  If they pay substantially more than their fair share of the cost of supporting the system, as determined by the underlying cost drivers, then they are subsidizing the other users.  This has the net effect of reducing the benefit received by the airlines. Many if not most people, including NARP, appear to believe that the airlines receive a large federal subsidy.  Like NARP, in many instances they don't differentiate between commercial airline, general aviation, and military operations.  They appear to think that the entire federal transfer benefits only the airlines, but this is not the case.  The subsidy per passenger and per passenger mile is relatively small.       Approximately $810 million or 30 per cent of the budgeted federal transfer to the FAA will support operations and facilities that benefit the airlines.  In addition, Essential Air Services will receive a federal subsidy of $141 million, and TSA Passenger Screening will require an infusion of $1.6 billion in federal transfer funds to cover the gap between ticket taxes and costs.  This will bring the federal subsidy for activities devoted to supporting airline operations to approximately $2.6 billion, which is close to the amount of the transfer or subsidy in FY08. In FY08 the average federal airline transfer (subsidy) was approximately $3.92 per passenger ($2.6 billion/253 million passengers).  However, for FY09 the number of passengers will probably decline, although by how much is unclear, since the fiscal year does not end until September 30th, meaning that the subsidy could be somewhat higher.  By comparison, the FY08 per passenger subsidy for Amtrak was $48.50.  It too is on track to be higher in FY09.
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