WASHINGTON, DC – US Travel Association President and CEO Roger Dow issued the following statement on the federal budget proposal released today by the White House:
“The travel community strongly supports the Obama Administration’s efforts to modernize our failing air travel infrastructure through a long-overdue adjustment in the user fee funding mechanism known as the Passenger Facility Charge.
“Travel demandโand therefore the $2.1 trillion boost that travel gives the U.S. economy annuallyโcannot grow at the projected pace unless we aggressively tackle the crisis with our air travel infrastructure. We have studied the issue in great depth, and our research shows conclusively that addressing travelers’ desire for a better and more efficient flying experience trumps any other proposal for growing the U.S. travel economy.
“The PFC is really an ideal fiscal instrument, because it is rigorously designed in such a way that 100 percent of the funds it raises pay for projects that materially benefit travelers. Congress cannot raid it for unrelated programs, and airports are prevented from spending it on anything but the most relevant infrastructure priorities. Rather than publicly fretting about infrastructure problems without offering any real solutions, it is time for Washington to embrace the PFC as the fairest and most efficient means to fund these projectsโand do so before U.S. airports fall even further behind the rest of the world and return to recent years when we saw our global market share decline.”