United States Government Publishing Office publisher pbl distributor dst United States Government Accountability Office Resources, Community, and Economic Development Division author aut Government Organization text government publication eng GAOREPORTS Legislative Agency Publications gao legislative 2010-08-12 U.S. Government Printing Office 1998-03-19 monographic deposited born digital 18 p. GA 1.13:T-RCED-98-129 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-T-RCED-98-129 P0b002ee18038158a f:rc98129t DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-28 GAOREPORTS-T-RCED-98-129 machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-T-RCED-98-129 T-RCED-98-129 Airports Federal aid for transportation Facility construction Future budget projections Air transportation operations Privatization Financial management FAA Airport Improvement Program Testimony RCED GAO discussed airport funding issues, focusing on: (1) how much airports are spending on capital development, and where the money is coming from; (2) whether current funding levels will be sufficient to meet airports' planned development; and (3) what effect will various proposals to increase airport funding have on airports' ability to fulfill capital development plans.<p/>GAO noted that: (1) in 1996, the 3,304 airports that make up the national airport system obtained about $7 billion for capital development; (2) more than 90 percent of this funding came from three sources: (a) airport and special facility bonds; (b) the Airport Improvement Program (AIP); and (c) passenger facility charges paid on each airline ticket; (3) the magnitude and type of funding varies with each airport's size; (4) the nation's 71 largest airports accounted for nearly 80 percent of this funding; (5) as a group, these airports received only about 10 percent of their funding from AIP; (6) by contrast, the remaining 3,233 smaller airports that complete the national system rely on AIP for half of their funding; (7) airports planned as much as $10 billion per year in development for the years 1997 through 2001, or $3 billion per year more than they spent in 1996; (8) about $1.4 billion per year of that development is planned for safety, security, environmental, and reconstruction projects--the Federal Aviation Administration's highest priorities; (9) another $1.4 billion per year of that development is planned for other high-priority projects, primarily adding airport capacity; (10) other projects of a relatively lower priority, such as bringing airports up to FAA's design standards, add another $3.3 billion per year; (11) airports anticipate another $3.9 billion per year for projects that are not eligible for funding from AIP, such as expanding commercial space in terminals and constructing parking garages; (12) the difference between current funding and planned development is especially acute for smaller commercial and general aviation airports; (13) their 1996 funding would cover only about half of their total planned development; (14) several proposals to increase airport funding have emerged in recent years; (15) these include increasing the amount of funding for AIP, raising or eliminating the ceiling on passenger facility charges, and better leveraging of existing funding sources; and (16) these proposals vary in the degree to which they help specific types of airports. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-T-RCED-98-129/html/GAOREPORTS-T-RCED-98-129.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-T-RCED-98-129/pdf/GAOREPORTS-T-RCED-98-129.pdf GAO/T-RCED-98-129 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-T-RCED-98-129 Testimony GAO/T-RCED-98-129; Airport Financing: Comparing Funding Sources With Planned Development; Airports Federal aid for transportation Facility construction Future budget projections Air transportation operations Privatization Financial management FAA Airport Improvement Program Public Law 104-264