Even though there are less flights right now due to the economy and last summer’s fuel issues, many airports across the country in the U.S. have been expanding and upgrading their facilities.
In most U. S. airports, when a traveler fly’s into that location there is an airport facility charge (PFC’s) added to the total cost of their ticket. These fees have been collected for decades now by the airlines to cover for capital building costs. The fees started at $3.00 and most are now up to $4.50 – $5.00 per airport. Most travelers don’t even realize they are paying these fees, but they are broken out (required by law) on each airline ticket fare lines. These fare lines show the base fare a passenger pays plus the U.S Taxes, PFC’s, Homeland Security Fee and fuel surcharges.
Since airport maintenance, upgrades and expansions are such long term projects many travelers do not see all the changes going on at certain locations. Some expansions include new runways being added to an airport, such in the case of the runways recently opened at the Seattle-Tacoma, Chicago O’Hare and Washington Dulles Airports. These three airports are ranked within this countries busiest airports with an average of over 300,000 take-offs and landings per year.
These new runway openings are to help decrease congestion at these airports during high peak fly times. So next time you fly into one of these airports, look down at the runway and take claim, for you helped pay for these new facilities, if you knew it or not!
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