USA Today article on GA aviation

So this article has recently caused quite an uproar in the aviation community about being a one sided story and not showing all the facts. When I read this article I immediately felt horror! So many non-aviation travelers are going to read this and think "Why the HELL am I paying for these guys to fly there toys around!"

Because of my education from the University of North Dakota I recently had a class on airport management in which we discussed the AIP funding program. I knew instantly that not all the facts were being shown and in all honesty it really pissed me off. I immediately wrote a response to the article on the website and also a letter to the editor explaining my disgust.

Many other groups have mentioned many of the same stuff that I did. I did my research in about 15 minutes(while in class) and found more information then USA today. Here is my response to them.

Please understand, whether you are involved with aviation or not, that General Aviation is a key factor in our national system. Without it we would lose a lot of business, vital airports for the postal service, patient and transplant services, fire fighting, policing, news, and many more.


"I also did research on the AIP funds for this year from the FAA website, not hard to find just go to FAA.com and search AIP funds. Your author failed to mention that the majority of the money from these funds already goes to Primary commercial service airports.

I looked at the state of Florida because of it's large amount of airports. In Florida there are 20 primary commercial airports and 58 general aviation airports. Of this the 20 primary commercial airports are already slated to receive $44,000,000 this year. On the other hand the 58 general aviation airports are only going to receive around $15,000,000. Commercial service airports are receiving almost 75% of the AIP funds for this year. This works out to just over $250,000 per general aviation airport and almost $2,200,000 for each commercial service airport.

This would have been very easy for your writer to do research, as I did it in class in about 15 minutes. I'm an active reader of USAtoday.com and still will be but was shocked at the one sided story that was put up this morning. If you have questions contact me and either I will have the correct answers for you or know someone who will."

Here is the link to the article. http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2009-09-17-little-used-airports_N.htm