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March 24, 1999, Wednesday, Metro Edition

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 15A

LENGTH: 428 words

HEADLINE: Bill would more than double airport-improvement spending;
The FAA's air traffic control system would also be upgraded using increased passenger fees.

BYLINE: Greg Gordon; Staff Writer

DATELINE: Washington, D.C.

BODY:
Warning that U.S. airports may soon be unable to cope with surging travel, Reps. Bud Shuster, R-Pa., and Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., rallied support Tuesday for legislation to more than double spending for airport improvements.

     Their bill, which recently passed the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, would allow the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and others nationwide to raise passenger fees from $3 to as much as $6.      Joining Shuster and Oberstar at a news conference, leaders of the Airports Council International released a national survey in which 56 percent of respondents said they would be willing to pay higher fees to finance new gates and other improvements that spur competition and reduce flight delays.

     The bill also would segregate the Airport and Airways Trust Fund, financed with billions of dollars in passenger ticket taxes, from the rest of the federal budget to ensure that the money is no longer diverted for other purposes.

     It would increase annual spending under the federal airport-improvement program from just less than $2 billion this year to $4 billion annually. It also would set aside another $1 billion to upgrade the Federal Aviation Administration's air traffic control system.

     "Aviation is growing at an incredible pace," Oberstar said. "The infrastructure to support that growth is not keeping pace."

     Former Transportation Secretary Sam Skinner, who is helping the Airports Council, said that 400 million travelers took airplanes in 1990, 660 million will fly this year and the figure will surpass 1 billion shortly after the turn of the century.

     Bailis Bell, the chairman of the Airports Council and director of the airport authority in Wichita, Kan., said the proposed increase in "passenger facility charges" is the key to enhancing competition. Major airlines that dominate most airports have no power to block the use of passenger fees to add gates for low-fare airlines, he said.

     The new passenger fees would generate as much as $1.4 billion annually _ $36 million at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, which has embarked upon a $2.2 billion expansion plan which includes a new runway and 20 more gates.

     Steve Busch, finance director of the Metropolitan Airports Commission, said he presumes that if the legislation was enacted, the commission "would charge the full $3."

     The bill still must clear the House Budget and Rules Committees before heading to the House floor.

LOAD-DATE: March 25, 1999