Setting the Record Straight on PFCs
Sample Op Ed/Letter to the Editor #1
As we head toward the Fourth of July and the height of summer travel, the conversation about air-travel fees also is reaching a peak. There is no doubt that passengers on U.S. airlines are spending more than ever on fees for checking baggage, selecting a seat and changing tickets. But when it comes to ensuring that the nation’s airports keep pace with the rest of the world, there is one fee that benefits both airports and passengers about which the airlines are curiously cagey.
The passenger facility charge, or PFC, currently is capped at $4.50 per passenger per flight, and it has been at this ceiling since 2000. This local user fee pays for the many necessary, and often federally mandated, airport renovations that improve safety, security, environmental regulatory compliance and airport capacity. Some airports do not implement a PFC, and some airports charge less than the maximum $4.50. But for our nation’s largest and busiest airports, an increase in the PFC ceiling to a maximum of $8 per flight by no means represents a luxury—it is an absolute necessity to ensure that their facilities remain efficient and competitive for the many millions of air passengers that travel through each year.
It’s important to understand whythe airlines would balk at an increase in the PFC user-fee ceiling. PFCs not only help airports improve the safety, security and efficiency of their runways and terminals, they also help facilitate new competition. The top five airlines presently control 80 percent of the market. But while a monopoly market may be a boon for these airlines, it burdens the individual passenger with higher fares and more fees. In 2012, the airlines collected a record $3.5 billion in baggage fees alone, the charge for a single bag typically being $25.
Additional fees, of course, aren’t the sole province of the largest airlines. Several smaller airlines now charge $100 for carry-on bags. But none of this incomegoes to the airport facilities and infrastructure that makes the commercial airline market possible. Despite the billions generated, not a penny from any baggage, seat-selection or ticket-change fee contributes to the federal Airport and Airways Trust Fund, and neither is any airline subjected to taxation for this particular revenue.
When Congress authorized the PFC in 1990, it recognized the need for passengers to pay for projects that preserved or enhanced the safety, security and capacity of the national air transportation system. There was also an understanding that these user fees could help attract new airline service to an airport. These objectives are still the same in 2013; the only thing that has not changed is the PFC. A small increase in this local airport user fees helps guarantee that airports can continue to provide safe, secure and efficient facilities benefiting passengers.