General Aviation Airports

To increase the capacity of the nation's airport facilities and maintain the aviation infrastructure, the federal government has made financial grants or transferred federal land to about 2,000 of the almost 18,000 general aviation airports in the United States. Since 1982, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has provided about $4.7 billion in financial grants to general aviation airports. GAO found that FAA does not adequately monitor general aviation airports' compliance with federal requirements and does not have the internal controls in place to protect the federal government's investment in the airports from waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement. FAA generally addresses airports' noncompliance with federal requirements through negotiation and settlement rather than the use of available enforcement actions.

GAO noted that: (1) FAA does not adequately monitor general aviation airports' compliance with federal requirements and does not have the internal controls in place to protect the federal government's investment in the airports from mismanagement, fraud, waste, and abuse; (2) although FAA's compliance policy clearly calls for monitoring airports to ensure they meet federal requirements, only 4 of FAA's 23 field offices monitor compliance; (3) this monitoring, however, relies primarily on airports themselves certifying that they are complying with federal requirements; (4) in 1994, the Department of Transportation's Inspector General concluded that relying on such certifications was insufficient for ensuring compliance with federal requirements on revenue use, noting that 14 of the 15 airport owners identified as not complying with revenue use requirements had previously certified that they were in compliance; (5) one result of FAA's lack of monitoring is that airports' unauthorized use of land has gone undetected in some cases for over a decade; (6) unauthorized use has resulted in the loss or diversion of millions of dollars in airport revenues from general aviation airports, typically owned by a local government; (7) in some cases, increased risks to aviation safety also resulted; (8) FAA determined that birds attracted by an unauthorized landfill at Hesler-Noble Field in Laurel, Mississippi, posed a possible danger to aircraft; (9) FAA generally addresses airports' noncompliance with federal requirements through negotiation and settlement rather than the use of available enforcement actions; and (10) when negotiations are unsuccessful and persistent noncompliance occurs, FAA has not always taken appropriate enforcement action--such as withholding transportation grants, taking back the title to airport land, or taking action through the courts.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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