Again the current administration preaches security and yet at the same time
doesn't want to pay for it. I agree that most US airlines have been poorly
run (the main clause of their currant state, not 9/11), but shouldn't
security be the responsibility of the airports or the government?

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US wants airlines to keep paying security costs
Reuters, 11.05.03, 6:15 PM ET


By John Crawley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration indicated on Wednesday it
will not let airlines off the hook for security costs, even though the
struggling industry has lobbied hard for the government to do so.

The Transportation Security Administration, which oversees aviation
security, sought industry input on proposals to change the formula for
determining what each airline contributes monthly.

The money helps cover the multibillion-dollar cost for passenger and baggage
screening and other government-run initiatives enacted after the Sept. 11,
2001, hijack attacks on New York and Washington.

In a regulatory filing, TSA Administrator James Loy said the agency is
considering a new formula -- to begin next October -- that would tie
security payments to an individual carrier's market share.

Currently, each airline contributes an amount equal to what it was paying
for airport screening in 2000, when the industry ran security operations.

But carriers, especially big ones struggling with huge losses, high business
costs and shrinking passenger volume, have pressed the Bush administration
to assume the entire cost of protecting planes, passengers and airports.

"The airlines are the most heavily taxed industry in America and it's our
position that the government should pay these fees because security is a
national security issue," said Doug Wills, a spokesman for the industry's
top lobbying group, the Air Transport Association.

At the very least, larger airlines, which have contracted operations in the
past two years, complain that newer carriersand low-cost operations that
have grown over the same period should be paying more than they did nearly
four years ago.

Airlines paid the security administration $161 million in fiscal year 2002
and $226 million in fiscal 2003, which ended Sept. 30, according to agency
figures. The government collected an additional $2.45 billion over the last
two years from a passenger security fee of up to $10 per round trip.

The industry said the airline and passenger fees as well as others that can
be attributed to new security requirements have cost airlines more than $4
billion.

The TSA took over aviation security from the airlines in February 2002.
Among other changes, it has overhauled passenger screening at more than 400
airports, installed new baggage scanning equipment, required airlines use
stronger cockpit doors and authorized a program to arm pilots.

Copyright 2003, Reuters News Service


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