Imagine paying $25 per landing, $15 for a flight service briefing, or $50 to utilize an ILS approach. With aviation user fees, any stage of flight could have a price tag. In countries around the world, this system of charges for use of the airspace system has piggybacked on taxes to make flying prohibitively expensive. Some pilots stop flying. Some fly less. Some never learn to fly at all. The United States' aviation system relies primarily on a time-tested system of excise taxes, with a smaller contribution from the general fund. Those taxes—currently 19.3 cents per gallon of avgas and 21.8 cents per gallon of noncommercial Jet A—are included in the amount charged for fuel, and that revenue goes directly to the federal government, without a costly bureaucracy to administer fees.
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