Obama targeting air travellers in budget by adding fees for having your bag screened

The cost of travel will take off if President Obama’s budget is approved out of hand because he plans to add fees to passengers and take away existing grants to airports in an effort to reduce the deficit.

In his budget put forth Monday, the President mapped out a way to accrue $32billion for the government over the next decade.

The Obama administration wants major carriers, their passengers, business jets and airports to pick up more of the costs of air travel and airport improvements that for years have been borne by taxpayers.

Rising prices: Air travellers on all airlines will have to pay additional fees if some of President Obama's budget proposals go through

New fees are sure to trigger strong opposition from airlines and other aviation groups who argue that the industry is already over-taxed and over-regulated.

Ideas quietly floated and then discarded during congressional budget negotiations last summer re-emerged in the fiscal 2013 transportation and homeland security portions of the White House budget sent to Congress that outlines $4trillion in deficit reduction.

Under the proposal, ticket fees that help pay for passenger and bag security screening at more than 400 U.S. airports would double to a mandatory minimum of $5 per one-way trip.

The fee would jump 50 cents per year beginning in 2014, raising the total to $7.50 in 2018.

Making cuts: Mr Obama's budget hopes to collect $4trillion to help reduce the deficit

The administration hopes the changes will yield between $9billion and $25.5billion in new revenues over 10 years.

The budget proposal would also permit the Homeland Security Department to raise the fee on its own after that through regulation.

Congress has resisted previous efforts by the Bush and Obama administrations to raise security fees, which cover less than half of the cost annually of screening airline passengers and their bags for weapons and bombs.

But airlines worry that Congress may yield to the enormous pressure to cut federal spending.

Second round: The cost of air travel and the FAA budget came up last summer in Congress so the debate is well-rehearsed in Washington

Airlines are also making money again on higher fares, which could make it more difficult to convince lawmakers to see things their way.

The administration is also proposing a $100 departure fee for airlines, business jets and other aircraft to help cover the costs of Federal Aviation Administration air traffic control.

The new fee would raise $7.4billion over 10 years, the administration estimates.

The budget also proposes to cut guaranteed grant funding for medium and large airports by $926million in 2013 to $2.4billion. Instead, airports would be permitted flexibility to increase certain ticket charges to raise revenue on their own for airport construction projects.