As the availability of FAA and local funding for general aviation (GA) airports has waned, transient fees have become an essential aspect of GA airport funding. As more GA airports consider adopting transient fees, this guide aims to provide airport managers with a detailed understanding of these fees, including the various types and structures of transient fees and best practices for effective fee implementation. Aircraft operators may also find this information valuable for navigating fee structures at various airports.
Types of Transient Fees
Transient fees are charges levied on “transient”, “non-based”, or “non-signatory” operators, i.e., operators without any relationship to an airport they’re using other than as a temporary visitor. The primary types of transient fees include:
Landing Fees: Landing fees are charges imposed on aircraft for using the runway and associated airside facilities. These fees are most commonly calculated based on the aircraft’s weight (e.g., maximum takeoff weight (MTOW)) and are intended to cover the costs of runway maintenance, lighting, and air traffic control services.
Parking fees: Parking fees are charged for the use of apron space where aircraft are parked for an extended period, usually for several hours or overnight. These fees help manage limited parking resources and encourage efficient use of space. They are most commonly structured based on the duration of the stay and the size of the aircraft. These are separate from ramp fees, typically collected by FBOs, as described below.
Ramp fees: Ramp fees are usually collected by Fixed-Base Operators (FBOs) rather than airports themselves. Ramp fees play an important role in supporting the overall operations at airports by covering some of the cost of services provided to transient aircraft by an FBO, such as passenger handling and ground support. Ramp fees are typically waived by an FBO with the purchase of a certain amount of fuel.
Other: Other transient fees commonly encountered by transient operators include facility fees and security fees; however, these are mostly only implemented at large commercial airports and FBOs, and as such, are beyond the scope of this guide.
Why Airports Adopt Transient Fees
Implementing transient fees serves multiple purposes that are vital for the operation and sustainability of GA airports:
- Maintenance and Infrastructure: Transient fees provide essential funding for the upkeep of an airport’s physical assets. This includes maintaining runways, taxiways, hangars, lighting systems, and other infrastructure necessary for day-to-day operations. These fees help ensure that the facilities remain in top condition, meeting the needs of both based and transient aircraft. Without these funds, airports might struggle to keep up with wear and tear, which could lead to operational inefficiencies or safety hazards over time.
- Safety Compliance: While maintenance funds are often directed at physical repairs, transient fees also play a crucial role in keeping the airport compliant with aviation safety regulations. This could involve funding safety inspections, ensuring emergency equipment is up-to-date, or training staff on the latest safety protocols. Safety compliance is broader than just fixing things; it’s about actively meeting legal and operational safety requirements, such as maintaining fire services, security measures, and airspace safety monitoring. It’s an ongoing process that ensures the airport operates safely within regulatory frameworks.
- Financial Sustainability: Transient fees aren’t just about maintaining infrastructure—they are a vital part of ensuring the airport remains financially viable over the long term. These fees create a stable revenue stream, which can be reinvested in airport improvements, technology upgrades, staffing, and future growth initiatives. Financial sustainability means the airport can cover its operating costs and remain competitive, without depending solely on external funding or grants. It ensures that the airport can adapt and grow while maintaining a healthy balance between revenue and expenses.
- Traffic Management: Implementing transient fees can help regulate the flow of aircraft at the airport. By charging for the use of airport facilities, airports can discourage unnecessary congestion, ensuring that the available resources—such as runways, ramps, and parking spaces—are used efficiently. This promotes optimal facility usage and can improve the overall experience for operators and passengers alike.
Transient Fee Structures
Understanding how transient fees are structured is crucial for both airport managers and aircraft operators. While landing fees are generally structured based on aircraft weight, parking fees tend to vary more broadly, as outlined below.
Landing Fees:
- Weight-Based Fees: Landing fees are typically calculated based on the aircraft’s weight, either MTOW (Maximum Takeoff Weight) or MGLW (Maximum Gross Landing Weight). Heavier aircraft incur higher fees due to the greater stress they place on runway and other infrastructure, reflective of their increased impact on airport maintenance. Fees may be structured as a simple price per thousand pounds of MTOW/MGLW (e.g., $1.50 per 1,000 lbs MTOW) or in a “bucket” structure (e.g., $10 for aircraft weighing 10,001 to 20,000 lbs MTOW). While the bucket structure was common in the past due to challenges with collections, the price per thousand pounds structure is now preferred due to its simplicity and allocation of costs based on the impact of aircraft operations on airport infrastructure.
- Flat Rates: Some airports opt for a flat landing fee, regardless of aircraft size or weight, to simplify education and collections. While this method may be easier to manage, it fails to align the fees with the impact an operation has on airport infrastructure.
Parking Fees:
- Time-Based Parking Fees: Parking fees are usually structured as either “overnight” fees, or fees based on the length of stay, with hourly rates and daily max rates. Longer stays result in higher charges, encouraging efficient use of parking space and discouraging an aircraft from effectively “basing” at an airport without entering into a long-term agreement with that airport. This system helps airports manage space availability and optimize parking turnaround.
- Size & Weight-Based Fees: Many airports combine time-based parking fees with a graduated fee schedule based on aircraft size or weight. For the purposes of parking fees, aircraft size and weight measurement methods vary more than with landing fees, with engine count, engine type, aircraft weight, and aircraft dimensions all utilized by different airports. Adopting an aircraft weight approach, e.g., utilizing MTOW, in parallel to an MTOW-based landing fee, offers the simplest structure while taking into account the impact of the aircraft on infrastructure and parking space availability.
- Location-Based Fees: Airports that offer different types of parking spots, such as pull-through vs tail-in, will often differentiate pricing based on the type of parking spot utilized. While this is a compelling pricing structure in its reflection of impact on parking space, it is the hardest of the structures to administer due to the increased difficulty of communicating parking rates and correctly assigning rates to aircraft.
Common Transient Fee Exemptions
Airports may offer transient fee exemptions to certain operators or under specific circumstances, as follows.
- Based Aircraft: Based aircraft are usually exempt from landing fees, as an airport generates revenue from those based aircraft through leases and fuel flowage fees, and benefits from the inclusion of those based aircraft in FAA reporting.
- Emergency Landings: Aircraft that make unscheduled landings due to emergencies are generally exempt from landing fees, ensuring that safety concerns are prioritized without financial penalties.
- Military and Government Aircraft: These aircraft are often exempt from landing fees as part of reciprocal agreements or statutory requirements, ensuring smooth operations in compliance with legal obligations.
- Touch-and-Go Operations: Airports may waive touch-and-go operations due to the minimal impact they have on airport infrastructure.
- Non-Profit, Medevac and Humanitarian Flights: Humanitarian organizations and nonprofit flights may qualify for fee exemptions. These exemptions are typically granted on a case-by-case basis to support charitable activities and community aid missions.
- Small GA and Non-commercial Aircraft: Many airports seek to avoid discouraging small GA utilization of their facilities by exempting small general aviation aircraft (e.g., <6,000 lbs MTOW) and non-commercial operations (e.g., operations not operated under §135, §121, or §91k) from fees.
Methods for Collecting Transient Fees
Efficient collection of transient fees is essential for maximizing revenue and minimizing administrative burden placed upon the airport. Fee collections have evolved over-time, from highly manual processes implemented decades ago, to highly-automated processes implemented in recent years. Transient fee collection methodologies include all of the following.
Manual Collection
Manual collection processes were most common decades ago, but are disfavored today, as they increase the workload of airport administration and decrease revenue collections. Many airports have, in fact, found that manual collections cost more in man hours than they generate in collected revenues, and have elected to transition to alternative collection methods or forgo collections overall. The two methods of manual collections include:
- On-Site Payment: Pilots or operators pay fees at the airport office or through a drop-box prior to departing an airport.
- Invoicing: The airport bills the operator after the service has been provided through manual efforts to identify the aircraft and operator based on the aircraft tail number. This process can lead to delays in collections and additional overhead for administrative staff who must ensure the invoice is accurate, chase down late payments, and resolve discrepancies. Errors in identifying operators or outdated contact information can result in uncollected fees, further reducing revenue. Additionally, the time lag between the service and the invoice can lead to disputes or non-payments from operators.
FBO Collections
Because of the difficulty associated with manual collections, airports for many years have deferred to FBOs to collect transient fees on behalf of the airport and transmit the fees to the airport after collection. However, this method has become disfavored due to the lack of transparency in collection efforts, the potential misalignment of incentives between FBOs and airports, and the high cost usually required by FBOs to collect and process transient fees.
Automated Solutions
Automated solutions are quickly becoming the preferred method for collecting landing fees. These solutions ideally include both self check-in portals and/or apps through which an operator can check-in and pay fees, paired with an automated invoicing solution with operations data provided by ADS-B and/or camera-based operations tracking solutions. Automated transient fee solutions of this nature maximize fee compliance and collections, while minimizing the burden on an airport. Such solutions also provide touchpoints for airports to interact with operators, whether that means gathering additional information on the operations occurring at their airports, or providing operators with airport-specific information such as noise abatement policies.
Landing Fee Best Practices
Implementing best practices ensures the effective collection of fees and promotes positive relationships with aircraft operators. Airport managers are encouraged to take the following into consideration as they implement or update their landing fee structures and collection practices.
Communication and Transparency
- Proactive Communication: Prominently publish fee structures, calculation methods, and payment procedures on the airport’s website and informational materials. Fees can also be published to operators via AirNav and AOPA. If contact information for frequent transient operators is available, send a notice to the operators of any pending changes well in advance of implementation of the changes to avoid surprises.
- Clarity: Be particularly careful about defining the structure. For example, if the landing fee is weight-based, what weight measure will that be based on (e.g., MTOW)? If the landing fee is applied only to commercial operations, how is a commercial operation defined and identified?
Fair and Equitable Fee Structures
- Equitable Structures: Where relevant, utilize a price per thousand pounds or similar structure to ensure that operations incur fees that are relevant and proportionate to the impact of that operation.
- Consistent Application: Apply fees uniformly to all applicable aircraft to maintain fairness and avoid grant assurance violations.
- Reasonable Rates: Set fees that reflect the actual costs incurred by the airport without inappropriately discouraging airport usage.
Efficient Collection Processes
- In-Person & Invoiced Payments: Offer both an in-person and invoice payment method to allow operators to pay based on timing that is convenient for them.
- Multiple Payment Methods: Offer multiple payment options, including online and mobile payments, to make compliance by operator as simple as possible.
- Timely Invoicing: Where invoicing is offered, send invoices promptly to facilitate quicker payments and allow operators to pass along costs to their customers where needed.
- Operator Interaction: Incorporate methods for efficient operator interaction, such as exemption requests and invoice downloads, into the collection methods, allowing for timely resolution of operator questions and concerns.
Regular Review and Adjustment
- Assess Financial Impact: Periodically evaluate how fees affect airport revenue and operations and update as needed to support ongoing airport operations.
- Adjust for Market Conditions: Modify fees in response to changes in operating costs or competitive landscape.
Compliance with Regulations
- Adhere to Legal Requirements: Ensure all fee structures comply with federal, state, and local regulations, especially FAA grant assurances.
- Engage Stakeholders: Involve airlines, operators, and community members in discussions about fee changes to ensure alignment and buy-in.
Future Trends in Transient Fee Management
As technology evolves and new aircraft types enter the market, airports will need to adapt their transient fee structures. Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) and the introduction of electric aircraft and vertiports eVTOLS may also create new fee models. By staying informed about these trends, airport managers can ensure their fee structures are adaptable for the future while continuing to support current operations.
Conclusion
Transient fees are a vital component of airport management, balancing the need for revenue with the provision of essential services. By understanding the types of fees, their purposes, and best practices for collection, airport managers can optimize operations and maintain strong relationships with aircraft operators. Implementing transparent, fair, and efficient fee systems will not only support the airport’s financial health but also contribute to the overall safety and sustainability of general aviation. By fostering transparent relationships with operators and adopting modern technologies for fee collection, airports can not only maintain financial sustainability but also ensure long-term operational success.
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