Camel, Meet Tent

Recent rants in this space discussed the FAA’s role in Washington’s ongoing budget battles and, especially, proposed low-activity tower closures. After a couple of weeks of air traffic slowdowns brought on by ATC staffing furloughs and primarily affecting airline passengers in the northeast, Congress demonstrated it can move quickly: It passed a measure basically exempting the FAA—but no other agencies—from the sequestration process and allowing it to move its money around to eliminate ATC slowdowns. So far, the FAA’s actions haven’t had a widespread impact on general aviation. That could change.

Key Takeaways:

• The FAA was exempted from budget sequestration, allowing it to reallocate funds to avoid air traffic control slowdowns, primarily benefiting airline passengers.
• Despite this exemption, the FAA is now demanding that general aviation events, like EAA AirVenture and Sun 'n Fun, pay for ATC services that were previously provided for free.
• The EAA views this as an alarming new direction and a potential "early indication" of the FAA imposing user fees on general aviation, contradicting long-standing Congressional opposition to such fees.

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