Republicans have agreed an increase to the Sept. 11 security fee on US airline tickets which the Department of Homeland Security first proposed some time ago. It is one of the only bipartisan supported budget initiatives running through the house at this time and is certain to now pass into law and it marks a failure on the part of airline lobby groups, which, to be fair, have had their arguments cut off by strong US airline figures of late.
“The threat of a TSA passenger tax increase is painfully real,” said Sean Kennedy, senior vice president, global government affairs at Airlines for America, a Washington-based trade group. “If there’s a deal assembled, there’s a strong chance we’ll be one of the core components.”
The Department of Homeland Security proposed raising the fee in its 2013 budget request to $5 per one-way trip, no matter how many stops, up from $2.50 per flight segment. The fee was created as the Transportation Security Agency was set up in 2002. It has never been raised, even as the agency grew to more than 50,000 employees, added high-technology explosive scanners at airports throughout the country and expanded beyond checkpoint screening. TSA’s policy goal has been to offset about 80% of its aviation-security related costs through fees - Doing that would require an additional $4 billion, meaning a one-way fee of $14, the GAO estimated. Thus this increase is the first of many if it passes and that is a real worry for US aviation.