Todays front-page cover story in the USA Today deals with GA Airports receiving millions in funding while many are sitting idle.

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/ ... orts_N.htm

I noticed that our own jewel Austin, Nevada airport made their map of the most heavily subsidized airports figuring that based on the federal monies they received, each flight in and out has a $121.13 subsidy tied to it. Now if I would have known that, I would have blown off work to hit the Fly-In for sure.

It would be interesting to read your comments on this story.

That was a very good article, and the interactive map is really neat. I've got mixed emotions about this kind of federal spending.

On one hand, being a user of these airports, I want to see them open and available.

On the other hand, I hate to see taxpayer money being wasted. Lebanon airport is where I go to get my mogas. It is currently being torn apart and "improved" with 2.6M of the money discussed in the article. What a waste. The airstrip was in generally good condition, and I see no reason to have spent any more than reasonable maintenance on it. They've got bulldozers, and all kinds of heavy equipment in operation. I can't see why.

Corvallis, my base, is getting 8M. Whoopie. Again, I see no reason for this.

A frequent justification for making bigger and better airports is that business will increase the use of them. Maybe, maybe not. But if this is such a good business deal, let the business guys get together and finance the airport of their dreams.

tom

This sort of news is selling right now. With the health care debate raging, government spending on seemingly fruitless endeavors is a hot topic in many arenas, and this kind of stuff (rich guy playgrounds) is low hanging fruit.

This part really chaps me though:

USA Today wrote:Some non-passenger airports, particularly in the Northeast, occupy valuable land that local officials say would be better used for development.

In Allentown, Pa., Queen City Airport, used only by private planes, is about 7 miles from Lehigh Valley International Airport.

"There's no need to have this airport," Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski says of Queen City. Its 200 acres could be sold for $40 million to generate $500 million in development, $6 million a year in taxes for Allentown schools and $4 million for the city, Pawlowski says.

Let's say there was some major fiscal reform that happens, and the FAA starts cutting grants to these airports. We all fly small planes that we'd actually prefer to operate on grass, so we're not especially sad when the concrete or asphalt goes to hell after years of neglect. What other subsidies are there besides paving and lighting? The 20 year buffer of protection from the locals who are drooling over the land is actually rather nice.

Did anyone read the article in AOPA Pilot this month about Park Township, MI?

Or this one...

USA Today wrote:"Congressmen are spending millions building runways at these little airports. That is just a complete waste of money," says Jonathan Ornstein, CEO of Mesa Air Group, a regional air carrier."

Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

nkh

Don't seem to have that problem in this neck of the woods- a guy I know just dismantled a dozer and flew it in three flights via a chartered sky van, and reassembled it, in order to keep the river out of the public strip on public land that he relies on. figured he's got $30K into that dozer being out there on the ground.

-DP

Homeland Security is still a BIG DEAl. We need to have airports maintained and available to respond to any emergencies be it terrorism or natural disaster. in either situation, we as General Aviation all know what to do.

Aren't hese projects funded primarily through the fuel tax we pay on 100LL and Jet A? From what I have read the airlines (Mesa Airgroup) get out paying a lot of these taxes. Why not dump a huge amount of money on a lot of small airports across the country where WE can use it? Would you rather be stuck flying into the airports with 121 ops, getting to deal with TSA?

The 121 folks are already into the gov't pocket with the EAS subsidies and the likes. How many millions of our tax dollars are spent keeping the 121 folks happy?

A lot of the fuel systems at these small airports are funded through these fuel taxes also.

These small airports are the link to the outside world allowing air ambulances, US mail, UPS and Fedex in to no where America. The nearest major hospital to us is a 420 nm round trip.....I can drive it faster than you can get a helicopter here with fuel stops.

This is just more propoganda spread by the ATA......

Just ranting......Sorry.

I see two problems there. First, the news agencies have lost all their credibility and objectivity. They have put their own "freedom of the press" at risk because they do not any longer offer unbiased reporting or provide a legitimate news service to the public.

Second, the airlines have managed to tie in with this dereliction of duty (or negligence or whatever) by the news media, and start trying to affect public policy or public opinion using the media as a weapon. The airlines must have figured... "hey if a political party can bribe the mainstream news media into winning them a US presidential election, why can't we bribe them to do OUR bidding too?... they got the public to drink the Kool-Aid in November so we should get a piece of that action too... this is even better than buying a Senator!"

We cannot turn the news media back into a legitimate, fair, or even tolerable beast. But we can use what is left of the justice system in America an have EAA, AOPA, GAMA, and whoever else file a class action suit. One of those multi-million dollar jury verdicts in favor of aviation for a change would surely make them think twice about fact checking and helping dismantle one of the things that makes America great.

AOPA response to the USA Today article:

http://www.aopa.org/advocacy/articles/2009/090917responsestory.html?WT.mc_id=090918epilot&WT.mc_sect=tts

Pardon me...but I think we are preaching to the choir here. The average Joe on the street may or may not have aything to do with GA..some locals don't even know there is an airport associated with their community, let alone use it. We as pilots need to do something on our own or colectively in our communities to try to change this because their (and our) tax money fund these airports one way or another. Some folks believe if they don't use airports, the airports have no value to them. Take our small airport for example...there are folks who fly in for business with Cabelas, the headquarters for a large feedlot system, flyin doctors to the local hospital, etc. that the average Joe never hears about. To those not involved in aviation, why should they fund a place only used by a few? Tomorrow we are having a flyin/ drivein here at SNY put on by the only aviation school in the state and our EAA chapter is flying Young Eagles to help promote community involvement in our airport. We fly Young Eagles annualy in four communities here in the panhandle of Nebraska to get young people introduced and involved in their local aviation. We as pilots MUST take some of the responsibility in the education of the general public or this will go away..money or no money! Make our presence known through local support, your local representatives, state representatives, and national representatives...remember there are always others out there who are pushing for THEIR adjendas and the tax dollars! HC

It seems to me that the Media misses the point: taxpayers don't pay for airport funding, airline passengers and GA pilots pay into the airport fund. If I remember correctly, hasn't there been a surplus in the fund that is not used for airport improvements... but is kept on the books to help towards balancing the federal deficit (stop laughing...). Same deal with the federal highway fund which is funded with federal gasoline taxes by drivers... not taxpayers.

I like this part from the AOPA rebuttal. USA Today should have their ticket punched!

The USA Today article and its companion Today Show piece both entice the audience to equate airline ticket tax income with airport expenditures. Neither story makes any effort to tell the audience that GA operators contribute to the same trust fund through fuel taxes that are five times higher than the airlines’, or that the fund also pays for the air traffic control system, of which the airlines are the primary beneficiary.

So what are the facts?
Let’s look at 2007, a fairly typical year for AIP funding.

The FAA distributed $3.34 billion in AIP funds to 2,610 airports.

341 primary airports—airports with more than 100,000 passenger boardings each year—received $2.1 billion in AIP funds. That’s an average of $6.17 million per airport.

48 commercial service airports—airports with between 2,500 and 100,000 passenger boardings—received $93 million, or an average of $1.94 million per airport.

139 GA reliever airports received $214 million, or an average of $1.54 million

982 GA airports received $617 million, or an average of $628,000.

Combined, the 389 airline airports divvied up $2,199,335,046, averaging $5.5 million per airport. The 1,121 GA airports shared $831,717,227, averaging $741,942.

An addition, $310 million was distributed through state block grant programs.

The EAA rebuttal is similar to the AOPA one, but a little better IMO.

http://www.eaa.org/news/2009/2009-09-17_funding.asp

That article is about as accurate as saying that bus passenger fees are paying for all of our roads and freeways...

Coyote Ugly wrote:That article is about as accurate as saying that bus passenger fees are paying for all of our roads and freeways...

True, except that the majority of the US population can relate to using roads and freeways, most owning cars and/or having driven somewhere. Personal aviation is a mysterious and exotic concept to many people, and we need to change that with better PR. GA is never going to have mass participation like driving, it just won't happen because of the cost and commitment to training. I think that ship has sailed. But what I long for is the admiration and awe of flying that people used to have in the golden age. I guess that's why it was called the Golden Age, and we're now in the Non-Pilots Have Contempt for GA Age.