The federal government carries out most of its air transportation activities through the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which is housed in the Department of Transportation (DOT). The FAA's mission is to "promote aviation safety and reduce congestion by building, maintaining, and operating the Nation's air traffic control system; overseeing commercial and general aviation safety through regulation and inspection; and providing assistance to improve the capacity and safety of our airports." It also funds aviation-related research and development.
Most of the money spent by the federal government on aviation comes from the Airport and Airway Trust Fund. The fund is supported by excise taxes on passenger tickets, freight and fuel. It provides all of the money for the FAA's airport improvement, facilities and equipment, and research and development activities — a total of about $6.4 billion for fiscal year 2009, not including $1.3 billion in supplemental appropriations under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Programs financed by the trust fund include construction grants to airports, subsidies to airlines serving small communities and modernization of the air traffic control system. The fund also supports between one-half and two-thirds of the FAA's operations budget, which is about $9 billion for fiscal year 2009. The rest of the agency's funding comes from general revenue.
The Airport Improvement Program (AIP) and the Essential Air Service (EAS) program are among the major aviation programs included in Subsidyscope. The AIP redirects tax revenues from the places where they are generated to other locations; the EAS involves direct payments to airlines that operate in little-served communities.
The AIP draws all of its revenue from the Airport and Airway Trust Fund. It handed out $3.5 billion to airports in fiscal 2008 for construction, rehabilitation, noise studies and other initiatives. The EAS program is supported partly by the trust fund and partly by overflight fees imposed on carriers that use U.S. airspace but neither take off from, nor land, in this country. It provided $108 million in subsidy payments to airlines serving small communities in calendar year 2008, and is expected to dispense as much as $150 million this year.
