Air Transport Association clarifies on corporate jets paying for their use of FAA ATC services

The Air Transport Association (ATA), which represents the US commercial airline industry in the United States, has said that corporate jets should pay in full for their use of FAA ATC services.

In a clarification to the Domain-B report: Corporate jets account for 16 per cent of costs, but pay only 3 per cent: FAA, ATA managing director (communications) Victoria Day told Domain-B that corporate jets should pay in full for their use of FAA ATC services, and that commercial airline passengers should not have to subsidise corporate jets.

The ATA position on this question coincides with the US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA), whose outgoing administrator Marion C Blakey, in her 12 July 2007 testimony before the Senate Committee on Finance (On Financing the Next Generation Air Transportation System), showed the committee a chart which explained that a commercial airline's Boeing 767 pays $3,600 in taxes, while a corporate Gulfstream pays $300, even though both cost the FAA the same amount in aviation services.

"Today's tax system is unfair to commercial airline passengers," Ms Blakely testified. "The fastest growing segment of aviation — business jets — is paying very little. It's a matter of equity," she told the committee. Showing the chart, she said it was "a finger in the eye of every airline passenger".