US to raise cost of health inspections
European carriers have hit out at a 10% increase in charges for health tests on aircraft and passengers arriving in the US.
Its representative body, the Association of European Airlines (AEA) said it was dismayed by the increase as its members were charged $65m for the service last year.
The new charges, imposed by the US Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS,) will come into effect on November 1.
The AEA said APHIS had admitted that the increased charges were to make up for lost revenue because of a drop in passengers and arrivals in the US.
The Association said its members' transatlantic traffic had fallen by 6% in the past 12m months while passenger revenues had dropped by 17%.
Ulrich Schulte-Strathaus, AEA's secretary general, said: "Action such as this simply beggars belief.
"The airline sector has seen its financial performance devastated by the economic crisis, despite our having ruthlessly cut costs and pursued efficiencies wherever we can find them.
"Yet external agencies and service providers - and APHIS is not alone in this respect - seem to think they can extract even more from us at this time in order to make up their revenue shortfalls."
He also criticised APHIS for not going through the normal consultation period because the need to raise charges was an "emergency".
Mr Schulte-Strahaus said: "What emergency? The economic recession is now well over 13 months old, there have been innumerable press reports on the decline in air travel, as well as well-documented statistics from every airline in the world.
"This is no emergency and it ill suits a government agency to use emergency rulemaking measures when no emergency exits.
"It is not only an abuse of administrative procedure, but an abuse of the affected parties, which the Department seems to think are inexhaustible banks of funds to draw upon."
The AEA said it had written to the US secretary of agriculture Tom Vilsack to protest as had the US airline industry's own association, ATA.
www.aea.be www.aphis.usda.gov