Monday, October 12, 2009
Action at Fall River Mills Airport (photo: Shasta County, CA)
When the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) decides how to distribute funds for airport improvements, it uses a prioritization system to help determine which projects are the most important. But that system didn’t prevent FAA officials from allocating nearly $2 billion during the last five years for airport construction and rehabilitation projects categorized as low priority.
A review by the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Subsidyscope of the FAA’s National Priority Ratings system revealed that more than 3,000 projects (out of a total of 18,771) were funded, even though their rating was below a 41—the cutoff for discretionary grants according to FAA rules. “Of the nearly $2 billion obligated for these low-priority projects, 30% came in the form of discretionary funding, 65% in entitlement funding and 5% in stimulus funding,” according to Subsidyscope.
One way in which the usefulness of FAA expenditures is measured is the ratio of dollars to “enplanements.” An enplanement occurs when a paying passenger boards an airplane. The airport with the most extreme enplanement ratio is Fall River Mills Airport in Shasta County, Northern California, which received $271,825 per enplanement. Jacksonville, Florida’s Cecil Field was close behind at $270,063 per enplanement.
-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky
Database Shows Billions Went to Airports Deemed Low Priority (Subsidyscope)
Aviation Stimulus Dollars Go To Small and Private Airports (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
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