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Private Jets Not Paying The Price For Air Travel

Forty years ago in 1970, there were only 1,800 airplanes flying in the sky. Today that number has multiplied 10 times to more than 18,000 aircrafts. That number is expected to increase rapidly to add another 9,000 jets within the next ten years.
 
While this increase in aircraft means big bucks for the makers of the planes and the training programs set up for pilots, not to mention the increase in air travel quality for consumers, not all the costs associated with this air traffic are being covered by the private jet companies.
 
When a consumer purchases a ticket for a commercial flight, the price they pay doesn’t just cover passage on the plane but also several different taxes that must be covered. Private jet companies only pay a small percentage (less than 6%) of the taxes associated with air travel. This has caused many critics to complain that private jet companies aren’t carrying their fair weight when it comes to paying for Air Traffic Control costs.
 
There have been a couple of suggestions made to remedy this situation. For one, the ATC system could be completely revamped to utilize satellite GPS methods to reduce the costs. Meanwhile, Congress is examining the possibility of a user-fee system that would force jet companies to pay for their ATC costs. Of course nothing is set in stone yet and the outcome of such propositions is still very much "up in the air"