Bob,
Before ADS-B, many airports either billed only the easy-to-identify operators, relied on self-reporting, or didn’t bother with small transient general aviation because the cost of collection exceeded the revenue. For airports without FBOs many pilots didn’t see charges at all, with ADS-B they do, and that’s why it’s such a hot issue. AOPA is blunt on this https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2024/september/13/aopa-asks-faa-to-block-aircraft-tracking-for-fees “landing fees...were not feasible at many airports until ADS-B was implemented.” At one point 15 years ago, before outsourcing the function, SMO literally had someone hand writing tail #s https://www.vector-us.com/post/santa-monica-airport-outsources-landing-fee-management-to-vector But for many smaller airports, there was no airport landing fee at all, or the fee applied only above a weight threshold (and aircraft based there might just be exempt because they paid through leases, fuel). Without leaning into the question of whether data should be used in this fashion, and whether passing airport costs through to such pilots is normatively desirable, I think it’s fair to say that use of ADS-B for billing lowers the transaction costs in knowing whom to bill and how much, which means airports start billing, and general aviation pilots have to pay. Cheers, Gary From: bob.poole--- via Mifnet <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2026 8:24 AM To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected] Subject: [Mifnet 🛰 76372] Landing fees for private planes A hot issue in Congress is an effort to ban airports from using an aircraft’s ADS-B signal to identify it for purposes of assessing the runway user charge. How do airports do this pre-ADS-B? Do they try to record the tail number? And if so, is that reliable and regularly used? Thanks for any input on this. Bob Poole
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