Governor opts to collect extra charge for air ticket

Associated Press

Hawai'i could get up to $15 million annually for state airport improvement projects under an administration bill that would tack between $3 and $4.50 onto the airline tickets of most departing airline passengers.

It's money the state could have been collecting since 1990 but ignored, apparently because of concern it would drive up prices on interisland tickets. The plan would not cover interisland flights.

Gov. Linda Lingle and her top aides insist it's not a fee or tax increase, which would be contrary to her campaign promise not to increase taxes or fees in order to balance the state budget.

"We're not proposing a fee," Lingle said Friday. "We're allowing Hawai'i to collect what is already being taken by other cities."

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, 330 airports nationwide charge the federally authorized passenger facilities fee; only airports in Hawai'i and Delaware don't collect it.

"It's charged anyway somewhere else. This is just allowing it to be paid in Hawai'i. So it's nothing additional to the traveler," she said.

Local travel agents, however, say it will add to the cost of a ticket for almost everyone flying out of Hawai'i. Exempt are nonrevenue passengers, such as airline employees, and passengers using frequent-flier miles.

Money from the passenger facilities fee must be used for FAA-approved airport improvements or to pay off bonds associated with airport debt and financing.

The fee is part of a federal program administered by the Federal Aviation Administration to provide an additional financing source to expand the national airport system.

Lingle said she didn't know why Hawai'i hasn't been collecting the passenger facilities fee. "I think they lost out," she said.

In the past, lawmakers were reluctant to institute the charge because it would hurt residents who frequently fly interisland routes, but three years ago state officials obtained a ruling to exempt interisland flights from the fee.

Former Gov. Ben Cayetano's administration last year submitted a bill to impose a $4.50 passenger facilities fee that would exempt interisland or foreign flights, but it became an unintended casualty of Cayetano's veto of a multipurpose bill to give rent relief to airport concessionaires.

The 2002 measure could still become law if the state Supreme Court agrees with Sen. Colleen Hanabusa's legal challenge to Cayetano's veto of 13 measures on the grounds that he missed the deadline to notify the Legislature of his intention to reject them.

The Senate Transportation Committee has decided it will rehear last year's bill and Lingle's bill together at a date yet to be determined.

The passenger facilities fee could net $10 million to $15 million annually, depending on the size of the fee, according to the Lingle administration, which said it would make up for the reduced revenues at the Airports Division.