Florida Landing-Fee Plans Face Headwinds

News Discussion
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Ormond Beach, Florida, is the latest municipality in the state to table plans for landing fees at its local airport, at least for the time being. A plan made public earlier this year to use ADS-B data to bill aircraft operators for landing fees at several Florida airports has raised hackles among pilots and the legal team at the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA). In the latest development, a September 18 vote to proceed with instituting the fees at Ormond Beach Airport (KOMN) failed to pass at a City Commission meeting, largely because the issue had not yet been referred to the city’s Aviation Advisory Board for review.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/city-commissions-in-florida-are-having-a-tough-time-organizing-support-for-landing-fees
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ADSB will make Aviaiton safer they said. ADSB isn’t going to be used for any other purpose they said. It’s been a helluva tool to track you for getting your cash. We all knew this was the case when it was first proposed but we were told otherwise. It should be known that a lot of these municipal airports that try this and other schemes are being run by incompetent, non aviation government appointed bureaucrats that are killing airport activity and their activities go largely unchecked except by other bureaucrats. This idea of using ADSB for assessing landing fees is total bravo sierra because it doesn’t track to the ground. I guess they believe ADSB is good enough and getting close enough to a landing without actually landing will still be a billable event. Shoot a handful of approaches to minimums at an airport that does this practice and see what comes in your mailbox. Then, try to explain that your aircraft never landed to one of these bureaucrats. You’d be better off arguing with a stop sign. It’s an absurd proposal and does nothing to foster safety or enhance aviation in a positive way.

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I’m still not sure why this is a story about ADS-B. Surely the issue is the fees? If they just put a $99 webcam on short final and collected tail numbers with that instead, would it make the fee OK? Or the proverbial guy in a lawn chair? What difference does the data source make?

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If anyone wants to use my ADS-B for billing me I will be happy to charge them my ADS-B “installation/maint recovery fees” for the “out” service I am providing.

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You are exactly right. The whole villainization of ADS-B over this fee collection issue is akin to blaming the tool maker for a person’s intentional misuse of the tool.

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The problem is using ADS-B to do things that can not be accomplished with cameras. I quote from a fee collection company’s website * Bills All Fee Types: Landing, Airspace Overflight, Customs, Parking."

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Or could it be that many aircraft owners still chafe at the ADS-B/out mandate that snatched, in one fell swoop, huge swaths of airspace from VFR aircraft for, in most cases, no defensible reason. No doubt there were places where the airspace is so congested that such a remedy might be indicated, but such an egregious airspace-grab (with no concomitant benefit) still rankles many of us.

Then, to add insult, the “always on” requirement that even the transponder requirement doesn’t inflict. That alone should have been rejected as an invasion of what little privacy we, as citizens, have remaining. Imagine how such a mandate would have been received by the general public, had it been a requirement for your car, in the name of “congestion pricing”, and of course “safety”.

Such an undeserved public slap in the face will be remembered for a long time.

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The issue here is short-sightedness by the city. There was an article referenced yesterday in Aviation eBrief from the “Observer” (I will link the article at the end) where a local paper was reporting on this topic. When you get down to it, from the way the local paper has presented things, it is all about the airport running a $1M budget deficit, and they want to use landing fees to help offset that deficit.

This is an example of the local authorities not understanding the value of the airport. Yes, the airport operation may cost the city ~$150k per year more to operate than it brings in with direct revenue. As this has been compounded for 9 years, that debt for the airport is now $999,852.

I guarantee that the airport brings in more than $150k annually in revenue to the city. When someone flies into Ormond Beach airport, they pay business taxes to any business they utilize. If you stay in Volusia County, you pay a Tourist and Convention Development Tax to the county (6%) and a State Sales Tax (6.5%). Everything from a single-family residence, to an office, to a retail store in that town pays an “Impact Fee”. For example, every retail shop pays $0.432 / sq foot feet fee for Fire, $0.336 / sq foot feet for police, plus a local roads impact fee ($5,593.44 per 1,000 square feet for a restaurant as an example).

The reason I will boycott an airport that assesses fees to general aviation is simple. Non-flying, uninformed, and ignorant citizens believe we are all rich because we fly, and they want to punish us for that. What they don’t think about is that when we come to your town, we are going to be spending money, improving your economy. More visitors, more retail shops, more restaurants, more hotels and home rentals - all generating local revenue. I promise, the economic impact to Ormand is significantly greater than $150k per year in expenses to run the airport.

The city should consider modifying their “Local Roads” Impact Fee to include funding the airport. Change the fee from “Local Roads” to “Surface Infrastructure”. Increase the fee by $2 in each category, and send that money to the airport. Problem solved.

If the city still wants to impose landing fees, they should require all locals to have a tag on their cars, and then charge every non-tagged vehicle entering the city a road-use fee. They could even do it at $0.50 per 1,000 pounds empty weight too, that way heavier transient vehicles pay more than lighter ones. That would be fair, wouldn’t it? If the car heads south to Daytona Beach for the day, then returns to Ormond, charge them again, just as you would for a touch-and-go landing.

I have flown into Ormond Beach with my family, stayed a week in town, ate at restaurants all throughout the area, visited locations along the beach, and spent about $3500 during my time there. If Ormond Beach wants to punish me because I am “rich” in some people’s eyes, then I will easily pick another Florida Beach town for my next vacation down that way.

Here is the article I referenced at the beginning. Ormond Beach City Commission tables proposal to add airport landing fees | Observer Local News | Palm Coast Observer and Ormond Beach Observer

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Like it or not, the spread of “use fees” of various sorts is probably an inevitable part of GA’s future here in the USA, right along with the shrinking number of airports that cater primarily to ‘personal’ GA.

We’ve certainly had a good run, because such costs have always been a fact of life for pilots in most of the world. I recall some decades past at being impressed by Australia’s already efficient system of collecting fees from users of various outback airports.

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“. . . I guess they believe ADSB is good enough and getting close enough to a landing without actually landing will still be a billable event. Shoot a handful of approaches to minimums. . .”

To be fair, you’re still using ‘their’ - resources airspace, controller, etc. - even if you don’t actually land.

Which suggests a split billing system, one for using the airspace and a second fee for landing. [The landing fee would be based on aircraft weight.]

Of course, this is an argument in favor of the webcam approach broached by andy. If you’re going to have fees, there are better ways of collecting the data.

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The misuse of ADS-B is nothing short of a massive data breach. It’s no different than if NASA ASRS reports were trotted out in court as confessions of guilt.

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This concept chaffs in so many ways that most everyone has already touched upon. I agree that everyone born on this planet is obligated by mere existence to pay our way; which we do - and then some. But misguided and/or devious people have used the excuse “you must pay your fair share” to impose their personal power and enrichment over others for centuries.

  1. I invested in ADS-B in order to be a good citizen in the aviation world and assist controllers with separation.
  2. I invested in ADS-B to enhance my own “see and avoid” safety.
  3. I invested in ADS-B in order to continue flying in “mode-C” airspace.
    That’s it. Nothing more.

What I do not appreciate, and what will cause me to pull the power to my ADS-B is third parties using my ADS-B track for their own selfish purposes in detriment to my own.

  1. I will quit ADS-B if it is used to monitor my movements as an individual.
  2. I will quit ADS-B if it is used to scrutinize my flying for possible violations.
  3. I will quit ADS-B if it is used to send me bills.
  4. I will quit ADS-B if it is used to influence or modify how or where I fly.

We are all aware of governments getting creative with “tolls” on the highway to “influence” our driving habits. We are penalized if we do not modify our driving to their whims. The right times of day, the right kind of vehicle, the right number of passengers, the right route thru the city, etc. We are on the slippery slope to having the same thing happen with our flying. Did you fly the approved noise abatement pattern? Did you overfly our town lower than our noise ordinance requires? Did you do a touch and go at the wrong time of day? Is your aircraft registered to a flight school? Did you overfly our town with an experimental aircraft? Ding$ ding$ ding$ ding$

Then of course there is the landing fee itself. Why did your municipality even build the airport in the first place, do you want us to come, or want us to stay away? Norman Crabtree famously said “The airport runway is the most important mainstreet in any town”.

I previously worked for a Chicago based company that as we grew built 10 manufacturing facilities throughout the Midwest. The owner of the company specifically required that each plant be built within two miles of a municipal airport. Places like LaPorte, Indiana and Marion, Ohio never would have been selected if it weren’t for their airports. Maybe these towns would prefer to just close their airports, and while they are at it, maybe they should close the highway off ramps that lead to their town as well. The same logic applies.

Too many city councils have simply inherited an airport rather than invested in obtaining one. They don’t understand why it is important, how valuable it is, or how to best benefit from it. As modest as it may seem, I think AOPA’s Airport Support Network and ASN volunteers is invaluable in this regard.

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Right. The problem is with the fee collection company, not ADS-B itself.

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I paid for my license plate on my car and wouldn’t you know it, now the gov’t has gone out and installed license plate readers at toll booths.

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