Trouble ahead over small plane fees

"AJ" wrote:
Essentially, the National Air Transportation Association representing
the airlines is seeking about $2 billion a year in federal tax relief.
To accomplish that, NATA wants general aviation - all aircraft except
commercial airliners and military - to take up the slack. That would
reduce the 7.5 percent "user fees" airline passengers pay.

To compensate for that, an unprecedented user fee would be slapped on
general aviation. Such fees would be in lieu of a 21.9-cent per gallon
federal excise tax on jet fuel and the 19.4-cent federal tax on
aviation gas presently paid at the pump when general aviation planes
refuel.

Does anyone have information on what this "user fee" is going to be based
on? A fixed price on per-aircraft-year (e.g. $10,000/year per aircraft,
whether it's a Boeing 747 or Cessna 172, irrespective of time in the air),
per-aircraft-mile, per-aircraft-seat-year, per-aircraft-seat-mile-year, or
what?