Current Stories on the use of ADS-B for landing fees.
Mesa's Falcon Field Fee Fight Continues - Four Part 13 complaints have now been filed with the FAA by tenants and flight training organizations at Falcon Field Airport (KFFZ) in Mesa, Arizona, challenging the landing fee program the city adopted in March 2026. AOPA, the Arizona Pilots Association, and the Aviation Safety Advisory Group of Arizona have filed comments supporting the complaints, arguing the city's cost center allocation methodology is unsound and violates grant assurances. In late July the Mesa City Council voted 6-1 to delay implementation for 90 days from July 27, pushing it into late October, and triggered an independent audit led by the city's outside legal counsel; the sole dissenting vote came from the councilmember who proposed the fees. Under the published schedule a based Cessna 172 would be charged $20.35 per landing and an itinerant Skyhawk $24.35, with only the first ten landings per month exempt for based aircraft, a threshold a flight school can exceed in a single busy morning. Most significant for airports considering similar programs: the adopted fees were calculated on an assumed ten percent reduction in operations, and the ordinance permits the City Manager to raise the fees further if traffic falls more than twenty percent year over year for three consecutive months. - August 19, 2026
Pilots dispute Arizona's Falcon Field fee justification- AOPA, the Arizona Pilots Association, and the Aviation Safety Advisory Group of Arizona filed a rebuttal challenging the City of Mesa's justification for landing fees at Falcon Field, as part of the FAA's review of several Part 13 complaints over the fee program. The groups argue Mesa did not establish that the fees were necessary, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory before approving them, question the city's airport cost center calculations, and ask why federal funding was not considered for future projects. The filing points to the city's own acknowledgment that flight training operations do not significantly increase pavement costs, and argues this suggests the city's motivation was at least in part to limit flight training and reduce noise complaints. - August 13, 2026
Speak Up To Stop ADS-B Misuse - AOPA issued a call to action on January 22, asking its 300,000 members to contact their senators and representatives in Congress and urge them to cosponsor the Pilot and Aircraft Privacy Act (PAPA). - January 22, 2026
Bills To Stop ADS-B Misuse Introduced In Congress - Legislation introduced in Congress, the Pilot and Aircraft Privacy Act, seeks to address growing concerns about the misuse of ADS-B, which has been increasingly used to collect fees from pilots. - June 26, 2025
AOPA CEO Darren Pleasance Landing fees - Airports are the magical Emerald City at the end of a golden flight and a place of welcome for pilots and their passengers. Especially general aviation airports, the lifeblood of our industry, the places where GA pilots, their aircraft, and their passengers should feel welcomed, respected, and celebrated. - June 2025
Arizona Airport Rolls Back Landing Fees - In response to feedback from AOPA and local pilots, the Safford, Arizona, City Council unanimously voted to immediately remove landing fees at Safford Regional/1Lt Duane Spalsbury Field for any aircraft under 4,000 pounds, and for touch-and-go operations for aircraft over 4,000 pounds. - May 8, 2025
Montana’s ADS-B Privacy Bill Signed Into Law - On May 8, a bill to limit frivolous use of ADS-B tracking data was signed into law by Montana Governor Greg Gianforte. This legislation battles the recent trend of US airports using ADS-B information to impose landing fees on general aviation planes. - May 13, 2025