Page 56 - Planning and Design of Airports

34 Airp o r t Pl anning

capital improvement funding support, in 1990, Congress passed the
Aviation Safety and Capacity Expansion Act. This act established the
policy of allowing airports to impose a passenger facility charge (PFC)
to supplement their capital improvement programs, while allowing
greater amounts of AIP funding to be allocated to smaller airports
with capital improvement needs. Under this Act, an airport applied to
collect a $1, $2, or $3 charge, on any passenger enplaning at the air-
port. The fee would be collected by the air carriers, upon purchase of
a ticket. Revenues generated by PFCs would then be spent by the
airport that generated the revenue on allowable costs associated with
certain capital improvement projects approved by the FAA that
enhance safety, security, or capacity, or increase air carrier competi-
tion. In 2001, the maximum allowable PFC was raised to $4.50. As of
June 2007, approximately $58.6 billion in PFCs have been collected at
367 airports nationwide. More than 1500 projects utilizing PFC reve-
nues have been approved since the 1990 Aviation Safety and Capacity
Expansion Act introduced the PFC program.

AIR-21: The Wendell Ford Aviation Investment Act
for the 21st Century
In April 2000, funding for airport planning and design through the
AIP and PFC programs was increased with the Wendell H. Ford Avia-
tion Investment and Reform Act for the Twenty-FirstCentury, known
as AIR-21 (Public Law 106-181). This funding increase was designed
to assist larger airports which have become highly congested, as well
as smaller airports struggling to preserve commercial air service.
The AIR-21 Act was introduced at a time when the nation’s air
carriers were coming off record profits and growth in air transporta-
tion was at its highest in history. As part of the act, AIP funding was
increased, on the order of 300 percent to many airports to allow for
capital improvement projects designed to relieve the increased con-
gestion and delays encountered at the nation’s largest airports at the
end of the 1990s.

The Aviation and Transportation Security Act of 2001
In response to the terrorist attacks involving the hijacking of four U.S.
airliners used in suicide attack missions on Washington, D.C. and
New York City, on September 11, 2001, The Aviation and Transporta-
tion Security Act (Public Law 107-071) was signed into law. This Act
created the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which
took authority over aviation security and imposed a series of require-
ments for screening air carrier passengers and luggage including
mandatory electronic inspection of all checked luggage. This has had
profound effects on airport terminal planning and design. To fund
these policies, the Act authorized a passenger surcharge of $2.50 per
flight segment and a fee imposed to air carriers equivalent to each