Passenger facility charge

Beginning June 1, 1992, commercial airports that were controlled by public agencies began collecting passenger facility charges. The charges were added to airline tickets and, at the time, were $3 per passenger, per leg. Effective 2001, due to passage of the Wendell H. Ford Aviation Investment and Reform Act for the 21st Century, Congress raised the PFC cap to $4.50 per ticket or $18 per round trip. Each month, the FAA publishes the "Key Passenger Facility Charge Statistics". The report summarizes the annual amounts given to airlines by the airports that collect the PFCs. When the PFC program began, airlines were given 12 cents out of each PFC. In 1994, that amount went down to 8 cents. Between 2000 and 2004, the rate increased to 11 cents. President Barack Obama, in his 2015 budget request, asked for the cap on fees to be raised to $8, which is slightly less than what airports had wanted. == Statistics ==

In 2017, it was estimated that airports across the U.S. charged $260 million in passenger facility fees per month. The collection in all of 2017 was $3.286 billion; in 2018, it was $3.514 billion. In 2014, the collection was approximately $3 billion. == Legislation and lobbying ==

In early 2017, Congressman Peter DeFazio (D-OR) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) introduced a bill, the "Investing in America: Rebuilding America's Airport Infrastructure Act", which would allow airports to increase PFCs. The bill would eliminate the $4.50 cap per flight segment. In exchange, funding for federal Airport Improvement Program grants would be reduced from $3.35 billion per year to $2.95 billion. In 2016, a measure to increase the PFC cap to $8.50, which was backed by airport and travel industry trade groups, failed. == Debate over a PFC increase ==

Opponents In 2014, the year before Congress was set to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration, the airline industry lobbied against a $4 increase in PFCs. ==References==