1. Reduce delays and cancellations by modernizing the air traffic control system
- Safe, yet antiquated technology is a major source of delays
- New technologies and procedures will open up airspace and reduce delays
2. Stop unfair financial burdens on passengers
- Passengers are subsidizing corporate jets
- Congress must say “no” to any proposal to increase financial burdens on passengers through increased taxes and PFCs
3. Require corporate jets to pay their fair share of taxes
- Commercial aviation accounts for approximately 70 percent of FAA costs to provide air traffic control services, yet airlines and their passengers subsidize luxury business jets by paying 90 percent of the costs
- Congress must stop this inequity and rebalance the funding system so that each user pays their fair share
4. Address skyrocketing fuel prices
- Jet fuel prices risen a staggering 61 percent versus the same period in 2007
- While crude oil prices approach $120 per barrel, crack spread (the additional refinery charge for jet fuel) pushed jet fuel averages close to $150 per barrel
- Congress must take essential steps to address fuel prices by developing a national energy policy by releasing crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and product from the Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve
5. Maintain the world’s safest transportation system
- Safety is the airlines’ number-one goal – always has been and always will be
- U.S. airlines are the safest form of transportation in the world. In 2005, according to the National Safety Council, the odds of dying in a car wreck were 5,430 times greater than dying on a U.S. airline flight
- Our safety record is so impressive because of the unrelenting commitment of everyone involved – Congress, the FAA, the NTSB, manufacturers, airports, maintenance organizations, employees and their unions, and airlines – to improve civil aviation safety. That commitment has not waivered.