The city council in Austin, Texas, says it’s going to make “private wealth work for public good” by imposing a flat landing fee of up to $50 on non-commercial aircraft weighing less than 12,500 pounds that use Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. Larger planes would pay more based on weight. There are also plans to hike hangar rentals and fuel costs as the city tries to raise funds for a major expansion and modernization project. The council is also considering “surge pricing” of $100 per landing during special events, according to a memo from city staff to council members drafted last March. Although the city action is aimed at business jet operators, the airport is home to a lot of light aircraft operators, including flight schools, and will apply to them as well.
Councilwoman Vanessa Fuentes, who has spearheaded the effort to impose the fees, told the Austin Current the new charges, which could take effect as early as Oct. 1, are an effort to spread the burden of the airport upgrades to all users. “We just want to make sure that maintaining our airport doesn’t just fall on everyday travelers,” Fuentes said. “For individuals who have the means to travel by private jet, we want to make sure that they also pay their fair share.” The airport had 42,683 non-commercial operations last year and the memo noted that other big airports in Texas charge fees similar to those being proposed in Austin. The memo from staff to council, which was first published by the Austin Current, is copied below.
At the risk of sounding political, a significant number of people moving from California to Texas have been moving to Austin. Dallas is a distant second.
As soon as I read the phrase “to pay their fair share” I knew exactly where this was coming from. That’s a phrase commonly used by that end of the political spectrum when they want to “tax the rich” as they call it. Unfortunately for them, the usual result is that the “rich” ends up taking their dollars elsewhere. That’s not going to be good for the airport in the end.
“Fair share” is right up there with “think about the children”. Fair share based on what metric?
How many “business jets” weigh under 12,500 lb? My C-180 is certainly not what you’d call a “rich man’s airplane”. I won’t be flying into Austin…
With all the influx of new residents, why can’t the existing tax base provide for airport expansion. Sounds like they need to get their budgetary house in order first. Glad I don’t live there.
Who says they aren’t doing both? Never let a source of income go to waste, even if you don’t need it.
Just so long as the city council also adds “surge pricing” to all public parking facilities. After all, the owners of $100,000 SUVs need to pay their fair share, just like the owner/pilot of a $50,000 1970 Piper Warrior would at this public airport.
The politicians at the local level in Austin and the surrounding county are socialistic, and have been for many decades. So, “soak the rich” is a constant theme they play. Since Austin is the state capital, the state-level politicians frequently pick fights with the local politicians. It’s all the usual performative politics idiocy. (The politician quoted in the story is a native Texan, so the attempts at California-izing Austin isn’t the problem in this case.)
The risk, of course, that this political critter’s brainless attempts to win brownie points with her voters will make personal flying and training flights out of AUS outrageously expensive. The countermeasure is education about what the non-airline ops really are at AUS.
(AOPA is quoted in one news stories as commenting about how much a landing fee would add up to if one does pattern work. If they said that, that was stupid: no one does closed traffic at AUS.)
(The report included in the article is from the city’s airport department. Don’t be mislead by the self-aggrandizing name “Austin Aviation”–it’s really just a city department.) Its report makes the claim that the proposed fee is similar to other airports in Texas. This claim is false: almost no Texas airports charge landing fees.
The Commies are not coming for you. Mesa, Arizona is one of the most conservative cities of its size in the country and it just imposed a massive fee expansion at Falcon Field that’s absolutely gutting GA activity.
I think they should be consistent with the surge pricing and apply to every plane that lands.
Ah. The commie quest of “paying their fare share”.
From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.
One more airport to boycott by GA.
When AUS was being moved to Bergstrom, we were promised a “downtown Austin reliever airport.” Then the old Robert Mueller was sold to developers. Promises were made to buy 3R3 (Austin Executive) and turn it into the reliever. The city never even made an offer (and, of course, it is now a Dell factory). It is all about the money, and GA has no realistic chance. Sorry …
Austin Executive was already closed for some time when Mueller closed. I was a student pilot based at Mueller when it closed (I was one of the last pilots to take off from Mueller’s runway with X’s on it, relocating a plan to Bergstrom) and I finished my training at Bergstrom.
There were several attempts to open reliever airports, but the only one that was ultimately successful was Bird’s Nest field which ultimately became KEDC. Not downtown for sure; I don’t remember any promises of a downtown airport; there was never a plan to save Mueller as an airport, it was always destined to be redeveloped.
To me the biggest tragedy was that the powers that be closed Mueller and opened Bergstrom essentially with no thought to where small GA traffic would go. Bergstrom was relatively unfriendly to light planes from the very beginning and that’s only gotten worse over time.
The old AUS closed on May 22, 1999 (under, as you noticed, rather sudden and probably illegal manner). Technically, 3R3 closed on the 1st of May 1999, so you are right. I trained at AUS, but had a plane at at 3R3 (tiedown). [Two, actually.]
The owners of 3R3, by then, was Capital Investments, and they were always fair with us. As pilots themselves, they wanted it to stay an airport (and TRIED to get a bid from Austin), but pointed out that the name was “Investments” and it would sell to someone who had the money.
Closest thing I could find was a hail shed down in Giddings (KGYB). Was there, an hour drive each way, for several years, and them managed to get a hangar at Georgetown. Eventually, after 10 years on the wait list, I got a hangar at Bergstrom.
I was thinking that 3R3 had closed earlier than that but I trust that your recollection is correct. It had been winding down for a few weeks before the closure I think; I remember my CFI discouraging me from flying there for that reason. So I never landed at the old Austin Executive.
My recollection is that they started demolishing the airport infrastructure almost immediately after it closed. It definitely left Austin GA in a world of hurt, I’m not surprised it took you years to find hangar space. The city never really wanted GA at Bergstrom and built very inadequate GA facilities there, except for the private jet crowd.
One of my fondest memories of my time flying out of Bergstrom was the time in 2000 that then-president Clinton was in town for some reason. Perhaps the Air Force One pilots had predicted that Bush Jr. was going to win the forthcoming election and that they might be flying to AUS often in the future, but for whatever reason, as I was taxiing onto 17L in a tiny Cessna 150, the tower cleared me to take off, adding “your traffic is a Boeing 747 doing touch and go on the parallel.” Sure enough, a glance right and there was Air Force One (technically not, since the President wasn’t on board) doing a touch and go on that long runway. First and last time to have Air Force One called out as traffic!
I would correct one tiny thing. “My recollection is that they started demolishing the airport infrastructure almost immediately after it closed.” Actually, they started demolishing things BEFORE it closed. Did the Mayor Daley of Chicago trick – sent bulldozers out in the middle of the night to dig trenches across the runways about three days before the closing – because there was a lawsuit and they wanted to be able to tell the judge “Well, too late now!”
Trouble was, there were still a couple of hundred aircraft on the ground there. So they had to make temporary repairs to the taxiways so that we could use them to take off and reposition. {:<(
Isn’t KEDC Austin Executive now and a reliever?
Not so far out of town. Although you are correct. It and Taylor are the closest we have.
Several of the nearby airports have fees as well, all over reasonable amounts. If one goes far enough away from the city that dissappears. Typical left wing affect in a left wing city. Since rides like uber and lyft became available, I don’t mind landing away from the main city.
Airport fees are not just a “left wing” idea, though.
Doesn’t “surge pricing” ensure there is no “surge”. Tax what you want less of and subsidize what you want more of.
Clearly they want less landing fees and fuel sales.
Surge pricing for events is nothing new. The Vegas area GA airports have been operating this way for years. It’s what’s done with the money in Clark County that gets people fired up.
The thing is, they are using these fees from GA to pay for their “Journey with AUS” airport upgrades. Here’s a newsflash, GA doesn’t use those upgrades! We use federal funded runways (and a airplane under 12500lbs doesn’t impact runways from a maintenance standpoint) and taxi to a Fixed Base Operator (FBO). I don’t mind paying a fee to the FBO as they provide a service but I do not impact City services at all. Just another fleecing by a leftist run city.