GAO found that all 12 air carriers selected for review have training programs that address disability-related training requirements, with some variations in the specific content and format. Each air carrier demonstrated that it has in place initial and recurrent training for its employees, including its contractors, who interface with passengers with disabilities. All 12 air carriers also demonstr...

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), within the Department of Homeland Security, and airport and airline stakeholders jointly implement travel and tourism initiatives at U.S. international airports to facilitate the arrival of travelers. These initiatives include Automated Passport Control self-service kiosks that allow eligible travelers to complete a portion of the CBP inspection process be...

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is leading the implementation of the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen), a long-term initiative to transform the current radar-based air transportation system into one that uses satellite navigation, automated aircraft position reporting, and digital communications. From fiscal year 2004 through fiscal year 2016, FAA has received approxima...

GAO performed the procedures contained in the enclosures to this report, which it agreed to perform solely to assist the Department of Transportation’s Inspector General in ascertaining whether the net excise tax revenue distributed to the Airport and Airway Trust Fund (AATF) and the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2016, is supported by underlying records. The en...

The extent to which U.S. airlines contract out aircraft maintenance to domestic and foreign repair stations (as opposed to performing maintenance in-house) has remained relatively steady from 2010 through 2014. GAO's analysis of Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) data for that period (the most recent available) showed that 28 selected U.S. airlines' annual contracted maintenance spending ra...

The total number of potentially registerable vendors of jet fuel used in noncommercial aviation is unclear, but is likely greater than the number that have registered with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) based on industry information. While registered vendors—called “ultimate vendors”—are eligible to receive credits or refunds for sales of such jet fuel, some ultimate vendors are not cl...

Based on our literature review and preliminary discussions with experts, several transition issues would need to be addressed if the U.S. air traffic control (ATC) system were to be restructured, including transition issues related to determining the funding and finance structure of the new entity, transferring assets, separating the safety regulator from the ATC entity, mitigating potential impac...

All of the 14 airports and 3 airlines GAO reviewed have plans for responding to communicable disease threats from abroad, although the United States lacks a comprehensive national aviation-preparedness plan aimed at preventing and containing the spread of diseases through air travel. U.S. airports and airlines are not required to have individual preparedness plans, and no federal agency tracks whi...

GAO performed the procedures contained in the enclosures to this report, which it agreed to perform solely to assist the Department of Transportation’s Inspector General in ascertaining whether the net excise tax revenue distributed to the Airport and Airway Trust Fund (AATF) and the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2015, is supported by underlying records.GAO was...

Aviation industry stakeholders GAO interviewed described various factors that may affect the interoperability of the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen)—a complex, long-term initiative to modernize the U.S. air-traffic management (ATM) system—with other countries' ATM modernization efforts. Interoperability allows different ATM systems and procedures to accept and use each othe...