Airlines drive the cost of the system, according to GAMA’s Bunce.
Huge costs are generated “at certain times of the day when we have major arrivals and departures at hub airports,” he said. “It is not the same to move a general aviation aircraft from Chicago to New York City using reliever airports as an airliner going from O’Hare to LaGuardia. There are different costs associated with that.”
Most of those costs are generated through 35 airline hub airports in the United States, Bunce said. “At those airports, GA accounts for only 6% of the operations,” he explained.
“If you take a list of the top 20 airports used by the airlines and the top 20 used by GA, there is not a single common airport. GA does not use the same airports as the airlines.”