Sequestration: Impending doom?
October 18, 2012, 04:04 pm
The government has problem to solve for the general aviation community before the year's end and sequestration fees kick in, as models of other nations and officials raise concerns on their effects.
Norman Mineta, former Secretary of Transportation, presented a study in August trying to convince Congress to accecpt a reauthorization act instead of sequestration. The plan would modernize and reform programs like certification of new aircraft, including unmanned aircraft in civil airspace, and implement the Federal Aviation Administration's NextGen initiative, which would revamp the air traffic control system and reduce airline traffic by as much as 10 percent.
Mineta said sequestration will cause what Congress and the FAA have so painstakingly planned to do in the next four years to disappear, adding that it makes no sense.
"We're here today because our air transportation system, the envy of the world, is about to fall victim to a political meat cleaver called sequestration," Mineta said. "If I had one message to give to the leaders of both parties in Congress it would be this: Read this report."
According to President Barack Obama's plan, only certain flights would be subject to the sequestration fee.
“All flights that use controlled airspace require a similar level of air traffic services," says the president's proposal. "However, commercial and general aviation can pay very different aviation fees for those same air traffic services. To reduce the deficit and more equitably share the cost of air traffic services across the aviation user community, the administration proposes to create a $100 per flight fee, payable to the Federal Aviation Administration, by aviation operators who fly in controlled airspace."
In addition, it says that all piston aircraft, military aircraft, public aircraft, air ambulances, aircraft operating outside of controlled airspace, and Canada-to-Canada flights would be not have to pay the fee.
It is estimated sequestration fees would generate approximately $7.4 billion over 10 years. Currently, nine European countries have user fees in place including, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Austria and Serbia, collecting on average 4.9 billion Euros a year. The Netherlands, on the other hand, withdrew the user fee after a year because loss of business from flights outweighed revenue.
Mineta warns that unforeseeable variables could cause the U.S. to lose money and negatively affect general aviation, unless other plans are put in place.
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