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[quote user="clarkfork"] Well, If the airlines did actually pay for their share of the Federal airways, why the .43 cent per passenger mile subsidy?  .43 cents may be a small subsidy, but it is still a subsidy.  Also, do we know if airlines pay the full cost of the airline terminals they use.  Typically these are owned by local government entities.  Are the terminals profit makers, break even, or loss generators for the local governments.  Do local taxpayers have to subsidize them? By the way, I assume the subsidies you listed are thus: $0.0043 for air and $0.2261 for rail[/quote] Every user of the nation's airways gets a proportional share of the federal transfer payment to the Aviation Trust Fund, which is used for a variety of purposes.  There is no evidence that the commercial airlines enjoy a higher or lower benefit than their proportional share of the use of the facilities.  According to the ATA, the airlines pay a disproportionately higher percentage of the cost of operating the nation's airways. Most airports in the United States are owned by local or county governments.  They in turn set up an authority to manage them.  They are classified as enterprise funds for accounting purposes, which means they are expected to cover their costs, including debt service.  They are also expected to have a positive fund balance, which means that they take in more revenues than they spend in the short run, but in the long run they are expected to break even.  Accordingly, not-for-profit accounting rules are used to account for the funds activities.  However, this can differ from location to location.  In some instances, for example, positive balances in the enterprise fund can be transferred to the sponsoring government's general fund, although this is, I believe, rare.   The cost of the terminals is covered by gate fees, landing fees, excise taxes, etc., all of which are paid by the airlines as well as other users, e.g. UPS, FedEx, general aviation, etc.  Investment earnings may also cover a portion of the cost.  At the nation's major airports, which are relatively few in number, vendor rentals, including parking fees, contribute a significant amount to the coverage of the cost of the terminals.  So in a sense the airlines don't pay the full cost of the terminals.  Other users and vendors pick-up part of the tab.  However, it is important to remember that if the airlines did not use the terminals, there would be not need for them, most of the vendors, etc. To determine whether the costs of the terminals are covered by the aforementioned fees and taxes would require one to go through the financial statements of each airport.   Most of the larger airports cover their costs; outlying airports may require local subsidies.    One could argue that local taxpayers subsidize their airports through the property taxes that they pay to build the roadways to and from the airports.  This argument would also apply to the roadways that have been built to get to Amtrak's stations.  The big difference would be that in the case of the airports, the roadways were constructed more recently, whereas in the case of most of Amtrak's stations, the roadways were constructed many decades ago, so maintenance is the biggest item in the local budget.
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