Airlines oppose renewed push for higher security fees

The airline industry is casting a wary eye on efforts to beef up U.S. aviation security in the wake of the failed Christmas bombing attempt, fearful that Congress and the Obama administration will push through a fee increase on carriers to pay for security programs.

Fueling this concern is the administration's continuing desire to have Congress approve an increase in passenger security fees paid by airlines beginning in 2012.

The fiscal 2011 budget request for the Homeland Security Department did not call for the fee increase, leading some to think the administration had dropped it.

A spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration said the administration's fiscal 2010 budget request to increase the fee remains pending before Congress.

"With the fiscal 2010 budget, the administration transmitted an increase proposed to take effect in fiscal year 2012. The proposal has not been withdrawn or changed," said spokesman Greg Soule.

The fee is now capped at $2.50 per leg of a trip for each passenger, with a $10 ceiling per one-way trip.

But the Obama administration wants to raise the fee to $5.50 per leg and $11 per one-way trip by 2014, acting TSA Administrator Gale Rossides told Congress in the summer. The fee would jump by $1 beginning in 2012, she said.

Although the increase may appear to be insignificant, U.S. airlines are facing mounting costs and struggling to remain profitable, said David Castelveter, spokesman for the Air Transport Association of America, which represents the nation's leading airlines.

The industry claims aviation security is solely a responsibility of the federal government.

"We oppose paying anything for airport security, and we certainly further oppose any increase," Castelveter said Monday. "Our country's at war, and we need to have government funding just like any other defense initiative for this type of security."

The fee was implemented after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The Bush administration tried unsuccessfully for years to increase it.

But a renewed focus on national security has swept across the federal government since an attempt to blow up Northwest Flight 253 near Detroit on Christmas. A Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, has been charged in the attempt.

The Homeland Security Department, for example, is seeking to buy and install 1,000 whole-body imaging machines at the nation's airports by the end of 2011. Each machine costs about $150,000.

The airline industry especially took note when Senate Commerce Chairman John (Jay) Rockefeller, D-W.V., said new funds will be needed to pay for aviation security programs.

"All of this will require raising new revenues," Rockefeller said during a hearing of his committee last month. "That's always a problem in the U.S. Senate. But doing nothing is not an option."

A spokeswoman for the committee could not be reached Monday.

"It's pretty evident to us that there is going to be some attempt [to raise fees]," Castelveter said.

In 2005, the Bush administration proposed raising the security fee to $5.50 a flight. The effort was grounded amid a massive lobbying effort by the airlines, which estimated it would cost the industry nearly $2 billion annually.

The Obama administration contends that the current fee only covers about 36 percent of airport security costs.

In testimony to the House Homeland Security Transportation Security Subcommittee in the summer, Rossides said the fee increase would align the cost of aviation security services while simultaneously reducing the burden on taxpayers.

"The administration and TSA ask for your support of this proposal, and we commit to work closely with Congress to obtain the necessary authorization to begin the fee adjustments in FY 2012," she said.

It was not immediately clear Monday which committees with jurisdiction over TSA would consider the fee increase, or how it might move through Congress.

Castelveter said the airline industry will be watching closely to see if lawmakers try to add the fee increase to a massive bill to reauthorize the FAA. That bill already includes a different fee increase.

"Whether it's 50 cents or a dollar, everybody wants to take a piece out of the airline," he said. "We're not a piggy bank. We don't have an unlimited amount of capital."