Update: September 8, 2008

Private Aviation Feeds at Public Trough

The following is the original version of an article that appeared, with minor edits, in the Hillsboro (Oregon) Argus on Friday, August 22, 2008.

Special to the Argus
Friday, August 22, 2008
By Miki Barnes

Commercial airline passengers are now expected to pay fees to check their luggage. Though the public has been led to believe that higher fuel prices precipitated this change, there is ample evidence indicating that there are other disturbing undercurrents at play.

In a June 24, 2008 Los Angeles Times article "Private Jets Flying on Your Dime", Kathy Kristof referred to a report by Essential Action and the Institute for Policy Studies which found that "about $2.2 of the $7 billion in federal funds spent making capital improvements to airports over the last two years was used to fix up remote airports that primarily serve private jets."

Bob Porterfield in "Travelers Taxes Awarded to Small Airports," (April 15, 2007) sheds additional light on this: "The federal government has taken billions of dollars from the taxes and fees paid by airline passengers every time they fly and awarded it to small airports used mainly by private pilots and globe-trotting corporate executives. Passengers pay as many as six separate taxes and fees on a single airline ticket, adding up to $104 billion since 1997." A significant portion of these funds is then distributed to "rural airstrips serving crop-dusters and hobbyists, to executive airports serving corporate jets and exclusive resort destinations." According to Phil Boyer, president of the Airport Owners and Pilots Association, 95 percent of the country's 600,000 registered pilots are men. This small group, one-fifth of 1 percent of the U.S. population, receives billions of dollars in federal handouts. Meanwhile the other roughly 99.8 percent of the population (minus corporate executives and their friends who can afford private flights), which relies on the commercial airlines, is hit with additional fees to check luggage, purchase leg room and buy food.

Since 1998 the AOPA has given close to $4 million to various federal parties and candidates. The bulk went to Republicans, but a significant number of Democrats were also recipients. It appears that the majority of our elected officials are more than willing to tax commercial passengers in an effort to provide corporate welfare subsidies to a well-heeled few.

Oregon also lavishes public funds on this entitled minority via the Oregon Department of Aviation. This agency is essentially a government department devoted to pumping hard-earned taxpayer dollars into the hands of this select group. Since its inception in 2000, the ODA has funneled more than $66 million into airports across the state.

Additional monies allotted by the state's Connect Oregon program during the 2003 and 2005 legislative sessions were also doled out to the aviation industry. A case in point was the decision by the Oregon Legislature to allocate $10 million in lottery bonds for the North Bend Airport, which caters to the corporate jet set by flying high-end golfers to the Bandon Dunes Golf Course.

Guy Trebay, in the Aug. 6, 2006, New York Times article "My Other Vehicle is a Gulfstream," noted that according to some industry representatives, "As much as 80 percent of private air travel is now undertaken for leisure rather than business."

The federal government and the state are quick to justify their decisions by claiming that the policy of building, funding and establishing airports that cater to the rich is good for the economy. This tired argument invokes ancestral memories of bloated feudal lords in velvet robes patronizing disempowered peasants by throwing them a few coins before admonishing them to get back to work.

Meanwhile Oregon's hospital system is a national disgrace, and service delivery for the mentally ill is on the verge of collapse. While the aviation sector continues to live high on the hog at public expense, across the nation 47 million people - 15.8 percent of the population - lack health insurance.

In addition, the U.S. lags far behind other developed countries in its lack of a high-speed rail system. Our legislators are apparently too busy pandering to the predominantly wealthy male aviation industry to be bothered with funding programs that serve the men, women and children in middle and lower income brackets.

Miki Barnes has been involved with livability issues for many years.