Obama administration proposes $100 air traffic fee

On September 23, 2011, Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) member Kevin Mossey of Marion, Iowa started a petition urging the Obama administration to nix a proposed $100-per-flight fee for use of all air traffic services in “controlled airspace.” The plan to enforce the general aviation (GA) fee was made known in a White House deficit-reduction proposal released in September 2011.

In his petition, which received 8,904 signatures, Mossey explained that the existing revenue generation, collected through excise taxes, allows more of the revenue to go towards the operation of the air traffic control (ATC) system than the proposed fee, and that present fuel taxes are a more accurate reflection of the use of ATC services.

On January 13, 2012, the Office of Management and Budget Associate Director Dana Hyde re-affirmed the administration’s commitment to the $100-per-flight fee,