‘A scary precedent’
AOPA ensures Part 13 complaints are moving forward
The FAA is considering AOPA’s two outstanding Part 13 complaints regarding egregious FBO pricing practices, now that final responses and replies have been submitted. AOPA believes that North Carolina’s Asheville Regional Airport and Florida’s Key West International Airport have failed to protect the fundamental right of aircraft operators to park at these federally funded, public-use airports without being forced to pay for additional services they do not need or want.
AOPA, along with seven affected pilots, filed three FAA Part 13 complaints in 2017 over FBO pricing practices at Illinois’ Waukegan National Airport, Asheville, and Key West. At each airport, a single FBO controls all transient ramp space and fuel services, meaning the FBOs have a monopoly position and significant power over access to a public airport. AOPA believes those airports and FBOs have failed to fulfill federal grant obligations to protect the airport for public use—the FBOs have instead engaged in egregious pricing practices under minimal oversight. AOPA is working with airports such as Waukegan to help them understand FAA grant obligations as well as available options to make their airport friendlier to users.
In late January, AOPA withdrew the complaint against Waukegan after airport management took steps to address pricing and access. Waukegan now offers alternative public-use ramp space for transients at no charge, allowing visitors to bypass the FBO if they do not want or need additional services.
The two remaining airports as well as Signature Flight Support, the sole FBO at both Asheville and Key West, submitted responses to the FAA disputing AOPA’s remaining complaints. Signature argued that the two FBOs hold an exclusive lease for the entire transient general aviation parking ramp and are not bound by FAA standards designed to protect reasonable access to public ramp space. According to Signature, only the runway and taxiway are considered protected public assets, not any portion of the transient parking area.
“This would be a scary precedent,” said Ken Mead, AOPA general counsel. “Airports would effectively be permitted to hand over the entire parking ramp to a single FBO without competition or other restrictions to ensure reasonable access for users. Aside from active runways or taxiways, there would be no other public assets available for transient operators despite millions of federal and local dollars invested in these airports.”
TSA drops onerous GA security proposal
The Transportation Security Administration has scrapped a decade-old proposal to impose commercial air-carrier security measures on larger general aviation aircraft, acknowledging vigorous objections to the plan from the “overwhelming majority” of those who commented on it. The TSA’s withdrawal notice, published March 16, cited the agency’s re-evaluation of public input including more than 7,000 formal comments, culminating a successful advocacy effort by AOPA and other members of the general aviation community, said Nobuyo Sakata, AOPA director of aviation security.
The proposal, known as the large aircraft security program (LASP), was introduced in October 2008. It sought to make security programs, crew vetting, and passenger watchlist matching mandatory for GA aircraft weighing more than 12,500 pounds, regardless of the type of operation. LASP also proposed new requirements for airports that serve private and corporate flight operations.
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