> How much does the US subsidize air travel via FAA, airport subsidies, etc?

My plane ticket receipt contains fees for half a dozen various government costs, including airport fees and a general US transportation tax. The FAA is pretty trivial, having a budget of just under $10B out of total American spending on domestic air travel of more than $800B.

https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/docs/miss...

https://www.statista.com/statistics/207075/domestic-travel-s...

For all I know air travel may very well be subsidized, but you'll need to point to some serious numbers for it to be anything like the money that Amtrak hemorrhages as a fraction of its revenue.

Most of the costs of building and expanding airports are not borne by the airlines themselves but by the public via federal, state, and local governments. Admittedly, most of the cost of railroad infrastructure is not maintained by Amtrak itself, but the Class I railroads are profitable enough to take on major projects like rebuilding their routes to double-stack container clearances themselves.

The FAA AIP (Airport Improvement Program) grants typically cover 90% of airport improvement projects, with 10% coming from the local entities (state/county/town as appropriate).

That program is around $3.35BB of the $10BB total FAA expense.

Expanding airports isn't done for free. Airports charge fees to airlines for use of their runways, and they lease the commercial space inside. Any subsidies that go on here are second order - certainly not $32 per passenger.

Note that airlines don't reap the benefits of airport commercial revenue, and I expect most large airports make an operating profit, but I don't believe that many airports make a profit when capital costs are accounted for.

Numbers?

There are a lot of subsidies, but they tend to be individually small.

Essential Air Service subsidies Airlines serving rural communities which significantly increases overall ridership. Air Transportation Safety and Stabilization Act as just one example was 10 billion in loan subsidies after 9/11. Another example most Airports are heavily subsidies at least during construction, but so is some airline infrastructure like Indianapolis handing over $300 million for a United Repair shop. The military intentionally creates a huge stream of trained pilots without costing the Airlines a dime.

All of this is intentional so no one subsidy seem all that large, and adding up a thousand little pieces take enough effort that nobody complains.

PS: "Per passenger EAS subsidy in the 48 contiguous states plus Puerto Rico ranged from $10 to more than $977 per passenger in 2014" but it's only ~300 million per year so no big deal right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_Air_Service

For other modes of transportation, the government subsidizes the infrastructure but private operators compete on it. For passenger rail the government nationalized most of the system and operates a money-losing monopoly service. Major difference.

The rail is not nationalized, the passenger service is.

I don't know the numbers, but I'd be shocked if air and bus lost as much money per trip as trains. Part of what makes the train appealing for the longer rides is that if you're taking coach half of the car is empty and you know you won't have to sit next to anyone.

> I don't know the numbers, but I'd be shocked if air and bus lost as much money per trip as trains.

Just a thought, but if you're interested in numbers, it's an eye-opener to look at how much money airlines have lost for shareholders, bondholders, and the government via bankruptcies. If passenger rail was ever capable of tearing chunks out of the economy the way the airlines are, it must have been a century ago.

From 2011: "The industry in aggregate has lost about $60 billion over the 32 years since deregulation"

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/12/16/143765367/why-...

I'm pretty sure airlines are one of those unusual industries in the US (like banking) that have throughout their existence lost more money than they've ever actually generated in profit and have been kept whole by the government. Sorry I don't have any hard figures on that.

It's also worth considering that the American government has massively subsidized the airline industry. Trillions of dollars in defense spending for aircraft has propped up Boeing and its predecessors during hard times. That spending massively advanced civilian aircraft. Training pilots is another massive cost, which is mitigated by former American military pilots.

Keep in mind that bus travel is extremely heavily subsidized in the form of the government handling maintenance of the national highway system

How do you define "loss" in this context?

Net loss. So, if a ticket costs $10, and it costs the bus an average $12 per passenger, they'd have a $2 loss per passenger.

But in terms of comparisons. That metric is really difficult to define for a roadway or an entire network of airports and the transit systems that connect them to cities.