Airline Industry Takes Gloves Off, Sues TSA Over Security Fee Hike

TSA Security Fee, by the numbers (graphic: Andrew Bender) TSA Security Fee, by the numbers (graphic: Andrew Bender)

Last week, the Transportation Security Administration raised the security fee charged to airline passengers. This week, the airline industry struck back. Airlines for America (A4A), the U.S. airline trade group, and the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which represents 240 international carriers, filed a petition over the fee increase in federal court.

The main complaint: The removal of a cap on security fees.

Let's start with the basics. After 9-11, TSA security fees were pegged at $2.50 per flight ('enplanement,' in industry lingo) with a $10 maximum. If you flew nonstop point to point, you'd pay $2.50 each way, or $5 round trip (two enplanements). With a change of planes in each direction, you'd pay $5 each way (two enplanements), or $10 round trip (four enplanements). The cap meant that you'd never pay more than $10 even if there were more than four enplanements.

Under the new system, which took effect July 21, 2014, passengers pay a flat fee per one-way trip regardless of the number of enplanements. It's $5.60 each way ($11.20 round trip) whether there are changes of plane or not.

Here's the hitch, though: What's a one-way trip? Say that en route you break up your trip for a day or two of meetings, family visits, what have you. Under the old system, all those flights would be counted under the $10 cap. Under the new system, if a layover exceeds four hours, TSA counts the next flight as another one-way trip and collects another $5.60. The more four-hour-plus stopovers, the more times you're charged $5.60.

The TSA isn't commenting on this pending litigation, but in the past it's stated that it's following the direction set by Congress in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013. In the Federal Register, the TSA's parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, noted that the Budget Act 'does not include a limit on the number of one-way trips that can be charged per itinerary.'

A4A begs to differ, to put it mildly. Along with its petition to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, A4A and IATA submitted as evidence a letter to the head of DHS from the chairs of the Congressional budget committees, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), stating that Congress did not intend to eliminate the round-trip cap on fees.

With all due respect to the gentleman from Wisconsin, the gentlelady from Washington and the entire airline industry: If the cap was so important, perhaps it should have been made explicit in the Budget Act.

It gets even more complicated. Language in the Budget Act 'requires receipts in excess of the $250,000,000 deposited annually into the Aviation Security Capital Fund be deposited in the general fund of the Treasury.'

A4A and others have complained that this essentially means that the feds are using security fees to pay down the federal deficit. 'Our government must stop using airlines and their passengers as its own personal ATM whenever it needs more money,' said A4A spokesperson Vaughn Jennings.

Another wrinkle: the Budget Act also repealed the Aviation Security Infrastructure Fee implemented after 9-11, which has been paid by airlines directly; it's due to expire this October. A TSA spokesperson told me that this fee has been generating $420 million per year. So far, nobody's been able to explain to me how the government might cover that difference without raising fees paid by passengers or taking money from elsewhere in the budget.

At its root, this episode boils town three things that nobody likes: higher fees, the federal deficit and an unwieldy monster of a budget process.

Oh, and one more thing: taking blame when the public reaction is negative.

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