The Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport Board will ask the Federal Aviation Administration to authorize the nation's second busiest airport to levy a $3 passenger facility charge.
The board voted recently to get approval to charge the fee beginning next year. If the government agrees, airport officials estimate the charge will raise about $60 million a year, which would help fund airport expansion.
"This isn't the final decision, saying we are definitely going to start the charge, but it's certainly a step in that direction." said Vernell Sterns, the airport director.
If successful, the Dallas-Fort Worth airport board would be the latest to seek authority to levy the so-called head tax. The FAA recently authorized Chicago officials to begin assessing the charge at O'hare International Airport.
An FAA spokesman could not say if the agency would authorize the fee in Dallas, but agreed that no major airport had bee down. Many airports have initially resisted the fee -- which has been opposed by airlines -- but have increasingly turned to it as a source of revenue to help fund capital needs.
"The airlines opposed this because it shows up on a passenger's ticket and they assume it is a cost from the airline, which it's not," said a Wall Street investment, banker. "But the airlines are looking for ways to keep the capital cost off their rates and charges, and the bottom line is that this charge does not come out of their pocket."
A Texas judge has set back plans for a bond-financed horse racing track in Grand Prairie, ruling that the firm licensed to operate the facility had improperly won the franchise.
Travis County District Judge John Dietz last week said that the Texas Racing Commission violated state procedures in deciding to award the franchise to the Lone Star Jockey Club despite a hearing examiner's advice to the contrary.
The decision is being appealed, but officials said that the continuing legal dispute would stall plans to sell tax-free bonds as part of a $97 million track plan. Voters in Grand Prairie last year authorized a half-cent sales tax to back as much as $65 million of bonds to build the track.
City officials did not return telephone calls seeking comment, but they have said a bond sale is unlikely until the legal dispute between Lone Star and losing rivals is resolved. Officials said a syndicate led by Little Rock-based Stephens Inc. was ready to sell bonds for the projects later this month.
Ironically, track officials just last month broke ground for the start of construction of the facility on a 315-acre site north of Interstate 30 near Dallas. The track had been scheduled to open in 1995.
