A Washington lobby group has launched a campaign to block a move to prevent airports from collecting landing fees based on ADS-B data. The Consumer Action for a Strong Economy (CASE) is calling the Pilot and Aircraft Privacy Act “a tax break to the jet set,” but aviation groups have characterized it as a safety measure aimed at stopping aircraft operators from turning off their ADS-B to avoid the fees. Proponents of PAPA say ADS-B was mandated to help maintain aircraft separation in increasingly busy airspace and not as a tool to collect fees. AOPA has been championing the legislation and criticized the group’s approach. “It is unfortunate that this group uses deceit and falsehoods about legislation for their own gain,” said AOPA Senior Vice President of Government Affairs Jim Coon. “ADS-B is a safety technology to help pilots avoid mid-air collisions according to the FAA and NTSB whose leaders have both publicly stated their opposition to its use for fee collection. ADS-B is not an ATM for tax collectors, who, by the way, collect more than $3 trillion each and every year in local, state, and property taxes—without using ADS-B technology. On top of that, despite their erroneous claims, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the measure by a 396-10 vote on April 14th of this year.”
CASE, which bills itself as a free market organization created to protect consumers and taxpayers, also commissioned a poll which it says showed about 80% of voters, both Democrats and Republicans, opposed PAPA. ”This is a tax break for the jet set, paid for by average working Americans who will never set foot on a private aircraft,” said Gerard Scimeca, chairman of CASE. “What’s worse, is they’re sneaking it inside a bill written to honor the families of the victims of Flight 5342,” referring to the collision between an American Eagle regional jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter in Washington that killed 67 people in 2025. PAPA is contained within the House ALERT Act but is not included in the Senate ROTOR Act, both of which are aimed at complying with NTSB recommendations to prevent further accidents like the one in Washington. The two houses will meet to reconcile the bills, and CASE’s lobbying effort is aimed at removing PAPA during the reconciliation process.
PAPA does not create any kind of tax break. Airports would remain free to charge whatever fees they want to on any aircraft. The bill would, however, stop the use of ADS-B data to assess those fees. Third-party contractors have set up ADS-B receivers at dozens of airports around the country to detect aircraft landing and then use the distinct signal from each aircraft to look up the operators and send them bills. Only a small portion of those bills go to “the jet set.” Most are sent to light aircraft operators. When the ADS-B mandate came into effect, the FAA promised it would only be used for maintaining airspace separation. In addition to the effort to stop ADS-B billing, the latest FAA Reauthorization contains language that prevents the FAA from launching investigations based solely on ADS-B data.
This is likely a losing battle. The argument against the bill (tax break for the rich), while technically false, is very powerful, and the only meaningful counter argument is violation of privacy. And in USA, privacy very rarely wins a lobbying fight. The argument seems unconvincing when it essentially supports the ability to avoid paying landing fees at small airports.
Section 4 of PAPA also imposes some serious limitations on the use of landing fees, regardless of how they are collected, limiting their use to “airside safety projects”. At most public GA airports in the US such projects are eligible for up to 90% funding by the FAA. At my airport landing fees are an important component of our revenue stream and allow us to pay for operating costs including an airport manager who also plows the runway in the winter. We have few other options for revenue generation. The next biggest one is airport ground leases and through-the-fence fees. Raising those to compensate for the loss of landing fees would have a huge impact on our based users. Like many other airports, we exempt aircraft under 9,000 lbs and based customers from landing fees. Our landing fees are truly aimed at capturing revenue from the largest aircraft to offset the not insignificant impacts of their operations on our airfield and community. So while landing fees aren’t technically a “tax”, at our airport the proposed bill is definitely a break for the big jet operators at the expense of the little guy.
Not really, your airport manager is there. Let him collect the fees. That’s the way it was done in Europe for years where every time you landed someone would show up with his hand out demanding money. I prefer not to go there.
You missed the point. The bill outlaws using the money for anything other than “airside safety projects”.
Sorry to be so dense but I don’t understand what “airside safety projects “ are or why they should justify the use of aviation safety technology we were forced to buy to change me a fee or a tax whatever you choose to call it.
Publish the FBO members of “CASE”. The announce a boycott of every one of them. The fact that 80% poll opposed to PAPA is moot. They aren’t participants in the actions that PAPA is designed to protect.
Wouldn’t surprise me if this group is backed by AoA. They pay all sorts of fees we don’t and have used this same rehtoric in the past. Remember a “blip is a blip” and the cartoons showing the private jet delaying the line or airliners? This sounds similar.
“ On any given day about 95% of the population is either opposed to you flying your little airplane or ambivalent about it.” My father told me that 50 years ago and I’ve found him to be right. He also said, “Hope they never find out how little actual control of aircraft in the airspace there is and they’ll rise up and demand point to point flight plans and constant communication.” That was LONG before ADSB which will give the control freaks exactly what they want. We are almost certainly living in the last years of freedom for General Aviation in the USA.
The results of most public opinion polls are statistically useless anyway. You simply phrase the questions to get the answers you want. There is a whole science based around that and professional pollsters know just how to ask the questions to achieve the desired result.
Charging fees based on ADS-B data is kind of like installing license plate readers at the entrances to shopping center parking lots and charging you a fee just to enter the lot. Never mind the fact that you are likely there to buy something at one of the stores. Justify it by calling it a maintenance fee to keep up the parking lot. Let’s see how many shoppers would support that idea.
If the ADS-B data did not contain the aircraft identification, it could not be used for billing purposes. For the life of me I cannot understand why it is thought necessary for everyone and anyone regardless of motives to know the specific identification of a traffic target. This would seem a much simpler solution.