The White House’s Fiscal Year 2009 budget request for the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) funds critical aviation safety programs while financing much-needed congestion relief programs for the nation’s airways.
“This $68 billion budget helps us move forward on a new course that delivers high levels of safety, takes advantage of modern technology and financing mechanisms, and eases congestion with efficient and reliable transportation systems,” DOT Secretary Mary Peters said.
Peters said almost one third of the budget will go towards safety programs to help make travel safer by focusing on problem areas like runway incursions and near misses in the air. The budget also provides funding to hire additional safety personnel such as air traffic controllers. The budget places a strong focus on fighting congestion, building on DOT’s efforts to identify and implement new, innovative ways to fight gridlock in the air.
“If last-year’s record flight delays taught us anything, it is that traditional approaches are not capable of producing the results we need to keep America’s economy growing,” Peters said.
The FY 2009 budget requests more than doubles the investment in the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Next Generation (NextGen) technology, providing $688 million (including $57 million for research and development and $704 million for safety and operations) for the transformation from radar-based to satellite- based air traffic systems.
The $14.6 billion budget request for the FAA includes funds to hire a net increase of 306 new controllers, In March, the FAA will unveil its controller staffing strategy. Almost three-quarters of the controllers hired after the 1981 PATCO strike will reach retirement age over the next decade. The FAA plans to hire more than 17,000 new controllers through 2017.
The FAA’s safety goals for FY 2009 are to reduce U.S. commercial fatalities per 100 million people on board to fewer than 8.31 and to reduce the rate of general aviation fatal accidents.
The U.S. aviation agency has earmarked $9.9 billion to operate and maintain the air traffic control system, inspect aircraft, certify new equipment and ensure the safety of flight procedures.
The budget requests $171 million for R&D, including $91 million for research on aviation safety. The remaining research funding is for reduced congestion.
Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) President and CEO Marion Blakey says the Bush administration’s FAA budget request for FY 2009 provides a major step forward in air transportation modernization.
The former FAA boss said “this investment will boost ongoing efforts to advance NextGen and deal with the daunting challenges posed by the ever-increasing demand for air travel,” Blakey said.
The funding increases come as planning for NextGen is maturing. AIA believes it is important for the FAA to take these tangible steps forward toward implementing the new air transportation system.
AOPA President Phil Boyer is less pleased with the FAA budget.
“Once again, the Bush administration wants huge new taxes and user fees imposed on general aviation, and it wants to slash and burn the Airport Improvement Program (AIP),” said Boyer. “To think that GA or Congress is going to treat this proposal any differently than the last one is, frankly, crazy, and a waste of government resources in ideological posturing.”
The Bush FAA budget would cut nearly $1 billion from what Congress had approved for the AIP—a 22-percent reduction.
“We’re facing a capacity crisis at the major airports, and even the FAA concedes that the most effective method of decreasing congestion is building new runways. Yet they cut money for construction,” Boyer said.