Action Alert: Lawmakers to Try Again on Coronavirus Relief; Please Urge Your Delegation to Provide Funding for Airports and Our Industry Partners

November 10, 2020

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) intends to focus on coronavirus relief and the fiscal year 2021 appropriations bills during the lame duck session.  With that in mind, we are urging airports to continue weighing in with their elected officials to ensure the next relief package includes much-needed funding for airports and airport partners.  

House and Senate leaders are still far apart on the top line number for another coronavirus relief package.  Before the elections, Leader McConnell tried to advance a 'skinny' $500 billion relief package that included no funding for airports.   He is continuing his calls for a targeted relief bill and has suggested that recent good news on the economic front and with potential vaccines reinforces his position for a smaller relief package.  

Meanwhile, House Democrats are continuing to stand firm on a much broader and more expensive coronavirus relief bill.  The House cleared a $2.4 trillion coronavirus relief package that includes $13.5 billion for airports and concessionaires.   But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin couldn't reach a deal over funding levels and priorities.  

Lawmakers and White House officials will make another attempt to pass a coronavirus relief package before end of the year.  But as negotiators try to coalesce around a bipartisan package, the overall funding level is likely to go down from the House-passed bill.  In that scenario, there is a real danger that funding for airports could be reduced or excluded all together from the next coronavirus relief bill.

The airlines and their unions continue to push for an extension of the Payroll Support Program into next year to help carriers bring back furloughed staff and speed recovery efforts. We need to make sure that any future relief bill includes funding for the entire aviation system.   

Request
 
As coronavirus relief discussions heat up again in Washington, we need to do everything we can to make sure that any relief package that lawmaker consider before the end of year includes funding for airports and the entire ecosystem including concessionaires.

Please contact your Representative and Senators as soon as possible and ask them again to ensure that the next coronavirus relief package includes funding for airports and the entire aviation ecosystem. 

Talking Points

• On behalf of _______, I urge you to ensure that the next coronavirus package includes funding to help airports and our aviation system partners respond to the coronavirus.  I also urge you to provide $3.5 billion to concessionaires, which have also been hit hard by the pandemic. 
  
• We are grateful for the CARES Act, which provided an immediate lifeline to airports.  But airports and concessionaires expect to face considerable challenges in the months and years ahead as the global pandemic continues.
  
  
• Passenger numbers are still down approximately 60 to 70 percent from the same time last year. With a significant drop in passengers, airport revenue continues to suffer.  Meanwhile, airports are facing new operating demands and increasing strains on their outstanding debt.
  
  
• [Please explain how the coronavirus is impacting you're your airport - passenger levels, revenues, etc.]
  
  
• Given the significant decline in aviation activity and revenue, airports will need additional federal assistance to meet existing requirements and to prepare for the return of passengers in a significantly different operating environment.
  
  
• I also urge you to eliminate the local match requirement for Airport Improvement Program projects funded with FY21 dollars. This step, which is consistent the CARES Act, would free scarce local resources for other necessary purposes, including operational expenses.   

More Background Information on Request

COVID-19 Impacts Are Severe for Airport Operators:  America's airports – like the rest of the nation's aviation system – have been hit hard by the significant decline in travel caused by COVID-19. Passenger levels were down as much as 95 percent system-wide for an extended time and are still at only 25 to 30 percent of previous levels. Billions in revenue that airports expected to be generated by travelers has evaporated. Billions more in anticipated passenger facility charge (PFC) collections has also disappeared, depriving airports of a key source of revenue to support bond payments. Airports hold nearly $100 billion in collective debt, with some $7 billion in airport bond principal and interest payments due in 2020.   
 
CARES Act Funding Provided a Critical Lifeline, But Additional Assistance is Required:  CARES Act funding has provided a critical lifeline to airports in the near-term that will protect jobs, enhance cleaning and sanitization efforts, ensure that debt payments can be made and help keep construction projects moving forward. Unfortunately, the relief provided by CARES Act funding is only temporary given the depths of the crisis. The costs of maintaining facilities and meeting debt obligations, which total $500 million at one large hub airport alone in 2020, continue for airports even as airport revenue and PFC collections decrease significantly. Until passengers return, airports have few places to turn beyond the federal government.  
 
Future Relief and Recovery Recommendations:  Given the significant decline in aviation activity and revenue, and the precipitous drop in PFC collections that help support bond payments, airports will need additional federal assistance to meet existing requirements and to prepare for the return of passengers in a significantly different operating environment. Specifically, AAAE advocates for:   
 

• Commercial Service Airports:  We concur with the ACI-NA assessment of $13 billion in continued, future needs for airports across the country in the face of significantly reduced revenues due to COVID-19. Airports would use these resources to fund operations, payroll obligations, debt service requirements, existing construction projects, and recovery efforts. We recommend allocating these resources based on enplanements and landed cargo weight consistent with existing AIP formulas with adjustments to eliminate a maximum cap and PFC turnback requirements while maintaining the flexibility provided to airports in the CARES Act to use additional resources for 'any purpose for which airport revenues may lawfully be used.'      
  
  
• General Aviation Airports: General aviation airports, which are largely supported by aviation system activity such as fuel sales, have seen their revenues diminish significantly. While the CARES Act provided $100 million to GA airports, those resources were relatively modest considering that there are nearly 3,000 eligible GA facilities. We estimate that GA airports need an additional $1.5 billion to address current needs in the wake of the coronavirus crisis. These resources would help critical GA airports meet ongoing operational expenses, including payroll.  
  
  
• Increased Federal Share for Airports for FY21 AIP Grants:  Consistent with provisions in the CARES Act as it relates to FY20 Airport Improvement Program (AIP) grants, AAAE proposes to increase AIP funding so that the federal share for all AIP grants issued in FY21 is 100 percent. This would free scarce local resources for other necessary purposes, including operational expenses.   
   
• Assistance to Airport Concessionaires: As representatives of airports and a broad group of airport concessionaires; AAAE; ACI-NA; the Airport Restaurant and Retail Association (ARRA); the Airport Minority Advisory Council (AMAC); the American Car Rental Association (ACRA); the International Association of Airport Duty Free Shops (IAADFS); and the National Parking Association (NPA) fully support at a minimum the $10 billion in proposed assistance for airports under active discussion as part of the ongoing negotiations on the next phase of coronavirus relief.  Collectively, we also ask that Congress provide an additional $3.5 billion in federal assistance to allow airports to provide 'minimum annual guarantees' (MAGs) and rent relief for airport concessionaires. We are confident that this can be done in a way that ensures that airport concessionaires receive critical relief without unduly burdening airports.