FAA funding bill could cut ‘unreasonable’ airline fees

WASHINGTON — Congress faces a Sept. 30 deadline to approve funding to keep the Federal Aviation Administration afloat. Right now the bill includes language to curtail “unreasonable” airline fees. The airlines, with $4.6 billion on the line, are lobbying hard against it.

The FAA reauthorization bill, as currently stipulated, would strip airlines of the ability to levy all sorts of fees and entrust that oversight to the secretary of transportation.

“The only thing the airline industry is more committed to than increasing fees for passengers is defeating the provision in the FAA reauthorization bill,” said Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass.

So, who will win? The airline industry, which has contributed millions to the political campaigns of those who will make the decision? Or consumers, virtually all of whom hate the fees that airlines add to their ticket prices and will cast votes Nov. 6?

Members of Congress, who fly more than the average American, also bridle at the myriad airline fees that amounted to almost $2.4 billion in the first half of this year, and totaled $4.6 billion last year. Some of them fume in public, too, but they all are mindful that the airline industry has contributed $12.4 million to the campaigns of incumbents in the past 10 years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and already has given incumbents $2.4 million in the election cycle that will end with the Nov. 6 election.

So, will Congress come down on the side of travelers?

Brent Bowen, a dean at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Arizona, thinks there’s a “fairly good probability” they will.

“Some of America’s more frequent fliers are members of Congress,” Bowen said. “They get tired of all this. The last time I checked, the top five calls to members of Congress’ offices were complaints about an airline.”