US airports complain about FAA reauthorization 'uncertainty'

Airports Council International-North America President Greg Principato said some US airports are "missing whole construction seasons" because of the US Congress's failure to pass a long-term FAA reauthorization bill including the Airport Improvement Program, which provides funding for numerous infrastructure projects at airports across the US.

Congress late last month passed the 16th temporary funding extension FAA has received since its authorization officially expired on Sept. 30, 2007, allowing the agency to operate through Dec. 31. Responding to a question from ATW at the ACI-NA Conference and Exhibition in Pittsburgh last week, Principato said the lack of a long-term authorization is hampering projects and is causing a lot of "stop-and-start" construction efforts. Airports "need a steady, stable, reliable flow of revenue" to help finance modernization, he said. "Right now there's no reliability or stability."

He added that the lack of new legislation also means the passenger facility charge airports are allowed to impose to help finance projects remains capped at $4.50, a level cemented in FAA's 2000 reauthorization. "If the PFC had been indexed [to inflation], it would be $8.11 now," he asserted. "It's worth about half of what it was worth" in 2000.

According to ACI-NA, "PFCs have resulted in over $50 billion in airport capital investments since implementation in 1990. The share of US airport capital investment attributable to PFCs is currently estimated to be 30% or greater."

Sacramento County Airport System Director Hardy Acree, ACI-NA's chair for the past year, said PFCs are "absolutely critical" to help fund a wide range of airport projects. "Without an increase, I think you're going to see a continued postponement of projects," he commented.