FAA Contract Tower Program Benefit/Cost Guidelines

Fully Funded Towers

FAA's policy office (APO-200) will provide the FCT Program Office by November 15 of every other year the updated benefit/cost (b/c) ratios for all fully funded contract towers.

For regular contract tower airports with revised b/c ratios that continue to be over 1.0, the FAA contract tower program office will advise the airport sponsor of its revised b/c ratio and that the airport's contract tower will continue in the regular program for full funding.

For regular contract tower airports with revised b/c ratios that are below 1.0, the FAA contract tower program office will send each of these airport sponsors a letter with the updated b/c ratio and the back-up data information used for the b/c calculation. Included in the letter will be a request for the airport sponsor, if it so desires, to provide, no later than 60 days after receipt of the letter, to the FAA contract tower program office updated and verifiable data that will be used to calculate the final b/c. The FAA will provide these airport sponsors the final b/c NLT 60 days after the deadline for the receipt of the new data. The airport sponsor's cost-share portion to operate the tower, based on the final b/c, will become effective on October 1.

Cost-share Towers

FAA's policy office (APO-200) will provide the FAA Contract Tower (FCT) Program Office (ATP-140) by May 1 of every other year the updated benefit/cost (b/c) ratios for all cost-share contract towers.

For contract tower cost-share airports with revised b/c ratios that are over 1.0, the FCT Program Office will advise the airport sponsor of its revised b/c ratio and that, effective no later than (NLT) October 1, the airport's contract tower will be in the regular program for full funding.

For contract tower cost-share airports that have revised b/c ratios that have increased but are still below 1.0, the FCT Program Office will advise the airport sponsor of its revised b/c ratio and that the revised cost-share portion for the airport will be effective NLT October 1.

For contract tower cost-share airports with revised b/c ratios that have decreased, the FAA contract tower program office will send each of these airport sponsors a letter with the updated b/c ratio and the back-up data information used for the b/c ratio calculation. Included in the letter will be a request for the airport sponsor, if it so desires, to provide, no later than 60 days after receipt of the letter, to the FCT Program Office updated and verifiable data that will be used to calculate the final b/c ratio. The FAA will provide these airport sponsors the final b/c ratio NLT 30 days after the deadline for the receipt of new data. The airport sponsor's revised cost-share portion to operate the tower, based on the final b/c ratio, will become effective NLT six months after receipt of the initial b/c ratio.