FAA Proposes Rewriting Passenger Facility Charge Rules to Match 2024 Aviation Law

The Federal Aviation Administration proposed on Wednesday a supplemental rewrite of the Passenger Facility Charge regulations, the per-ticket fee airports charge travellers to finance construction projects. The proposal, published in the Federal Register of 4 November 2026 under Docket FAA–2022–1315, Notice 26–19, RIN 2120–AL86, would amend 14 CFR Part 158 to absorb sections 713, 743, 775, 776 and 782 of the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024. The agency set a comment deadline of 4 January 2027.

The move became necessary because the 2024 law, Public Law 118–63, was signed on 16 May 2024 — after FAA had already published its original notice of proposed rulemaking on 27 September 2023 (88 FR 66319) and after that docket closed on 27 November 2023 with six comments received. Several statutory provisions the agency could not previously address now require fresh notice and comment under the Administrative Procedure Act, so the new document reproposes some earlier items and replaces others.

Cheaper turnbacks for hub airports

Under the pre-2024 statute, 49 U.S.C. 47114(f) forced medium- and large-hub airports collecting a PFC of $3 or less to return 50 percent of their Airport Improvement Program apportioned funds; airports charging more than $3 returned 75 percent. The 2024 Act cut those figures to 40 percent and 60 percent respectively, and FAA proposes to write the new percentages into §§ 158.93 and 158.95.

• A reduction would apply only once an airport has been designated a medium or large hub for three consecutive years.
• The reduction is calculated at the start of each fiscal year, capped at 40 percent of projected fee revenue for a $3-or-less charge and 60 percent for charges above $3.
• If a revenue projection proves inaccurate, the reduction may be adjusted in the following year.

Two new eligible projects, fewer restrictions

FAA proposes adding two categories to § 158.15(b): a noise barrier at a small-hub airport where the day-night average sound level from commercial, general aviation or cargo operations is expected to exceed 55 decibels because of new airport development, and the replacement of existing workspace elements tied to relocating a Federal agency on airport grounds during terminal construction.

The proposal also deletes the requirement that low-emission vehicle and ground-support-equipment projects sit in an air-quality nonattainment or maintenance area, following the 2024 Act’s amendment of 49 U.S.C. 47139. Such conversions and acquisitions remain PFC-eligible at any covered airport; two surviving provisions are renumbered as § 158.15(b)(8) and (9).

A longer clock for notices of intent

The 2024 Act stretched FAA’s acknowledgment-or-objection window for notices of intent from 30 to 60 days, but left the parallel provision allowing a public agency to begin collecting after 30 days unchanged. FAA calls that mismatch an administrative burden and proposes in § 158.32(a) that the 60-day objection period also be the waiting period before collection begins, warning that otherwise airports could gather funds that later must be refunded in dollars to carriers and passengers. It asks for comment on the idea.

Separately, the notice codifies six “allowed objections” to the streamlined process — significant policy precedent, significant legal issues, significant controversy, revenue-diversion or noise or access problems, multimodal components, and projects serving no aeronautical purpose — and defines the last term in § 158.3 to cover items such as decorative landscaping, sculptures, works of art, cell phone waiting lots and roads to non-aeronautical areas. FAA drops its earlier plan to object to debt service, PFC blending and terminal buildings above $25 million.

Limited cost, wider access

FAA estimates roughly 138 small-, medium- and large-hub airports would keep using the streamlined route, with review falling from 120 to 60 days, and says the changes impose no additional costs on public agencies or itself. Using the 2025–2029 National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems, it counts 252 non-hub, 74 small-hub, 33 medium-hub and 31 large-hub airports among nearly 3,300 public-use fields. The rule is expected to be a deregulatory action under E.O. 14192. Technical questions are directed to Carlos Fields of the Airports Policy Branch, APP–510; the document is signed by Christopher S. Kelly, Associate Administrator for Airports.

For travellers, the outcome matters because PFCs are added directly to ticket prices and fund the terminals, runways and noise programmes they use. For airports, the shorter review and softer turnback penalties could free capital sooner — which is why the 60-day collection clock, not the fee ceiling, may prove the most contested item in the docket.

Source: Federal Register, Vol. 91, No. 212, 4 November 2026, Proposed Rules, p. 69511 (official reference: Docket FAA–2022–1315; Notice 26–19; RIN 2120–AL86; FR Doc. 2026–22450).