"U.S. airports want to up facility fee on tickets"

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Hartsfield-Jackson wants to raise facility fee, upping airfares
By JIM THARPE
The Atlanta (GA) Journal-Constitution

 
Airline passengers will be paying more for their tickets if the man who runs
the world's busiest airport - and his counterparts across the nation - get
their way.

Ben DeCosta, general manager of Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International
Airport, wants federal lawmakers to increase the so-called "passenger
facility charge" from its current level of $4.50 per flying segment to $7.50
when authorization for the current fee expires Sept. 30 - a hike of about
two-thirds.

DeCosta said the fee, which is automatically added to tickets at all U.S.
airports, needs to be raised to keep up with increased construction costs as
airports struggle to keep pace with an ever-growing flow of passengers.

"We need a reliable source of funding," DeCosta said. "The largest source of
reliable funding for the expansion of the airport infrastructure and the
renewal of that infrastructure is the passenger facility charge."

But the major airlines and some passengers balk at the proposal, which they
say would unfairly bloat ticket prices. The fee was last raised six years
ago, when the maximum went to $4.50 from $3.

Dennis Currens of Douglasville, a salesman who flies up to three times a
week from Hartsfield-Jackson, said he has mixed feelings about the proposed
increase. Currens, who has flown 2 million miles over the last 20 years,
said he realizes airports have to continually upgrade. And he knows the
money must come from somewhere.

"But I don't think they've yet justified what they want to use it for," he
said. "If it's just there to raise more money, I'm against it. If it's to
raise money for legitimate projects, that's another story."

Airport spokesman Herschel Grangent said the current facility charge brings
in about $154 million a year to Hartsfield-Jackson.

U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) said he has not taken a position on the
proposed increase, which will have to be approved by Congress because
airports are federally regulated. But Isakson agreed with DeCosta about the
importance of money derived from the charge.

"The airlines don't like it because it pushes the ticket price up," Isakson
said. " The airports love it because the more money the merrier. The truth
of the matter is there is a happy medium. We need to look at current revenue
streams and passenger loads and see what the right number is."

A spokeswoman for Delta Airlines said the proposed increase could add $12 -
not just $4.50. Gina Laughlin said most passengers flying into
Hartsfield-Jackson connect to another flight, and therefore incur more than
one facility charge - up to four per roundtrip. Delta flights account for
about 75 percent of the airport's business.

"We don't want it to go up at all," Laughlin said.

Delta does not believe airports have justified the increase, Laughlin said.
And Delta argues that cargo and private aircraft also use public airports,
but are not assessed the fee.

"Our customers are subsidizing projects and facilities used by more than
just commercial airlines," she said. "And that's not fair."

The FAA has recommended the fee be increased to a maximum of $6 per flying
segment, a number the agency said would raise an additional $1.2 billion
annually for the nation's airports.

DeCosta, however, said a higher increase in the fee is critical if
Hartsfield-Jackson and other airports are to keep up with passenger demands,
rising construction costs and safety requirements.

Hartsfield-Jackson's year-old fifth runway, he said, could not have been
built without the facility fee, which funded about half of the
billion-dollar project. The runway has been touted as a critical improvement
to reduce airline delays at Hartsfield-Jackson and up and down the East
Coast.

"The current charge of $4.50 is insufficient for us to carry out the plans
for our region's needs," DeCosta said. "It runs into billions of dollars and
we just don't have the money for it unless we have an increase in the
passenger facility charge."

The airport is currently designing a new international terminal and is
completing work on a tramway for an off-site rental car facility.

DeCosta said the $7.50 charge he and his counterparts support is the maximum
they could charge.

"We would only go to as high as we need to accomplish the plan we need to
serve our passengers, our airlines and our regions," DeCosta said.

Airport officials, he said, will come up with a revised master plan for
future projects that will indicate how much money is needed. Based on that
figure, he said, the airport would approach the FAA with a proposal for an
exact increase.

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