Automatic Dependant Surveillance – Broadcast, or ADS-B for short, was implemented in the U.S. using a ground network and in Canada using the Iridium satellite network delivering a near global coverage. With the U.S. mandate now five years old (2020) and Canada’s Class A and B airspace mandate arriving in May 2024, with a possible Class C, D, E mandate no earlier than 2028, more aircraft are equipping with ADS-B OUT transmitters. The FAA reports, that as of July 2024, there were 168,144 N-registered aircraft equipped with ADS-B OUT. At any given time, ADSB Exchange may be tracking 15,000 aircraft worldwide, through its ADS-B and MLAT system of 14,000 active feeds. Monetization and economic benefit are an exercise of incremental revenue and cost avoidance.
ADS-B transmissions are not encrypted (the data is in plain text) allowing anyone with a receiver to receive and record the transmissions from any aircraft either airborne or on the ground. Organizations like Flight Aware, Spire, ADS-B Exchange, FlightRadar24 and others, provide an Internet-based gateway to view unfiltered data from ADS-B, Mode S transponders and MLAT feeding systems.
Business aviation (BA) owners and operators have long been concerned about the ability for the public to use off-the-shelf hardware, applications and websites to track the movements of their aircraft. Securing ADS-B transmissions would not require the development of new security technologies, but could leverage off-the-shelf security technologies, techniques and processes. However, with more than 170,000 aircraft (worldwide) deployed with on-board ADS-B equipment, the introduction of encrypted ADS-B would require a rip and replacement of the existing ADS-B transponders or the introduction of additional hardware to facilitate a “man in the middle” encryption of the outgoing and incoming traffic.
Further, ADS-B IN portable devices commonly used by general aviation (GA) pilots (ForeFlight Sentry, Garmin GDL, Stratus, uAvionix Ping USB, and others), which are designed to provide high-value TIS-B and FIS-B (traffic and weather information), would be rendered useless through encrypting traffic.
In 2024, The DeLand Muni-Sidney H Taylor Field (KDED) airport investigated charging landing fees to all aircraft (US$3.00 per 1,000 pounds) using ADS-B. With the loss of government funding, the municipality was looking at ways to increase its revenue (in addition to tenancy rents and fuel sales). Landing fees are a natural income generator. At a recent public meeting on the topic of landing fees, DeLand’s Airport Manager John Eiff confirmed the intent of the fee is to deter traffic, stating: “The primary reason we are even considering a landing fee is to protect ourselves from other airports that are signing up for this. We’ve got Orlando Executive, Kissimmee, Flagler, Ormond Beach and us that are considering landing fees. If we do not impose landing fees, airplanes that are using the other airports and paying landing fees, they will choose to come to DeLand and saturate our pattern to an unsafe level. For us to add a landing fee is kind of protection against this.” The initiative was placed on hold as the municipality considered the initiative. In the summer of 2025, the program will be revisited by the municipality’s airport commission. Eiff is confident that the land fee initiative will be approved.
Other Florida airports are considering ADS-B derived landing fees. Kissimmee Gateway Airport will be implementing landing fees, noting in a statement: “A growing number of Florida GA airport leaders recognize this approach as a reasonable means of revenue generation to assist achieving financial stability. Landing fees would diversify revenue streams, support infrastructure upgrades and expansion, and assist in managing operating/maintenance and capital improvement costs. The landing fees would apply to transient aircraft to supplement the revenue needed for cost recovery and future capital improvement projects. This adheres to the user-fee principle, ensuring that those who benefit directly from the use of ISM facilities contribute fairly to their upkeep and expansion. Based aircraft owners will be exempted from landing fees since they contribute to revenue sources through ground and facility rental leases and are often engaged in bolstering the local economy through job production and purchasing of local goods and services.” On September 17, 2024 the City Commission meet and unanimously approved the ordinance. On October 15, 2025, the City Commission meet to consider approving the collection agency agreement and an option was introduce exempting landing fees (one per day per aircraft) for aircraft under 5,000 lbs (an impact of US$100,000).
Kissimmee instituted recording landings on February 1, 2025, and were to begin invoicing March 1, 2025. Airport management are in the process of updating Electronic Flight Bag systems with their updated landing fees. There are several aircraft exempt from the landing fees based upon their usage. For owner/operators who choose not to pay landing bills, under the State of Florida’s law, title 25 Aviation, chapter 329.40, the airport may: place a lien on the aircraft; a person is precluded from removing the aircraft (with a lien) from the airport, which has placed a lien on the aircraft. a person who removes or attempts to remove the aircraft is guilty of a misdemeanor (punishable with a fine up to US$10,000).
Monetizing ADS-B transmissions, leverages the notion that vendors with access to free public data (ADS-B transmissions) can use this resource to their economic benefit without the requirement to expend capital to build out the data transmission environment. ADS-B IN receivers are inexpensive and can feed cloud-based IT technologies. With the aircraft’s location, altitude, speed, registration and date/time in the ADS-B transmission, the programming effort to capture, manage and analyze the data against predetermined business logic is minimal (e.g. if aircraft’s location is airport N, aircraft’s altitude is at ground level and the airspeed has been diminishing from cruise to landing to taxiing and then to zero, then create a billing record). With aircraft registration public domain, automating the creation of an aircraft ownership record is a simple task. The process of determining a billing address will require some manual intervention but this is a one-time task (that is until the aircraft is sold).
Vector Airport Systems and VirTower provide an in-the-cloud airport management and billing system, inclusive of capturing aircraft landing and departure data utilizing ADS-B. Vector Airport Systems (Vector) was founded in 2005 to offer airports a better way to manage aircraft landing fees. Its system, called PlanePass was first implemented at Massport’s Hanscom Field, but has been implemented at dozens of airports around the United States. The system is capable of generating bills for landings, over flights, customs callouts and parking. The system is completely automated, billing the aircraft operator directly. With an in-house Customer Service and Collections Team, Vector has a 99.6 per cent collection rate. PlanePass also delivers detailed aircraft and operator data for a complete inventory of an airport’s activity. This data has a multitude of uses, including environmental studies, planning and operations, grant applications and improving data for noise management. Vector installs hardware at the airport to receive aircraft ADS-B OUT and MLAT transmissions, satellite tracking, radar data and digital camera images. The hardware is monitored 24/7/365 and any hardware issues are managed by Vector. For aircraft not in the Vector system, Vector personnel will research the aircraft’s ownership to determine an appropriate billing address and contact information. Over time, the billing data will grow as more airports contract Vector’s services and aircraft are added to the system. The airport receives a large majority percentage of the collected revenue, without any more labour than due diligence and contract signature. Once the contract is signed, there are no other costs other than administering the contract.
The San Antonio International Airport (KSAT) started billing Landing and Customs fees on October 1, 2024, managed by Vector billing transient aircraft. A fee of US$20 is billed to aircraft with a maximum weight of 5,999 pounds. A variable rate is applied for BA aircraft based upon (per 1,000 pounds rounded up): 6,000 to 19,999 pounds US$3.50; 20,000 to 49,999 pounds US$4.50; and 50,000 to 999,999 pounds US$5.50. The reaction on a recent Facebook posting (Airplanes and Coffee group, a GA focused group) solicited 625 comments, most of which were not very flattering. Interestingly, in 2019, the city had received US$12,560,397 in Federal Air Transportation grants, while expenses were US$147,216,000 and revenue was US$104,298,000 (KSAT and Stinson Municipal Airport). The 2019 data indicates that the airport is operating at a loss.
The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) reported on January 30, 2025, that the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority (GOAA), which controls Orlando International Airport and Orlando Executive Airport, has delayed a proposal to impose automated ADS-B-monitored landing fees. AOPA credits a flurry of input from local pilots just two days before the January 15 vote for the decision to reconsider the proposal. In a published report, AOPA Southern Region Manager Stacey Heaton, wrote: “It is rare for GA aircraft owners to be billed for landing fees, though the relatively recent creation of businesses that harvest ADS-B data from third-party providers and use it to generate invoices sent to registered owners on behalf of airport operators has been too tempting for many airports to resist – even as community members question whether the airports actually need the money. After months of claiming that GOAA had not established a landing fee policy, the board scheduled a January 15 vote. Just as abruptly, a January 13 meeting was called to hear from the public on the landing fee proposal. The short notice for that 4 p.m. meeting made it difficult for many to attend. AOPA emailed members in the region a call to action that was quickly amplified by word of mouth, and I was gratified to see more than 100 concerned pilots arrive for a standing-room-only event. Many members who were unable to attend in person sent emails voicing their concerns. The following evening, the GOAA board staff announced that airport leadership had opted to delay considering the landing fee proposal “pending review and refinement.”
On NAV Canada’s horizon is the modernization of the Canadian radar network. Unsubstantiated reports suggest that the cost of upgrading the secondary and primary radar sites could be north of $1.3 billion. With NAV Canada’s current financial situation (revenue, expenses, accumulated net loss and debt), funding the upgrade could be challenging. Over the past decade, NAV Canada has been decommissioning ground-based technologies like ADF and VORs (one site at ta time). Using ADS-B technology to augment or replace Canada’s national radar environment, creates a result where costs are downloaded to the user base. It is estimated the cost of equipage for the Canadian GA community could be more than $700 million (note: with some TIS-B and not FIS-B data uploaded to the cockpit using ADS-B) with the only tangible benefit being access to the airspace.
Augmenting Emergency Locator Transmitters (ELTs) with ADS-B data (providing enhanced search and rescue tracking) has the potential to provide SAR assets on scene faster and more efficiently. In 2023, Canadian SAR had 8,234 incidents including 1,718 cases of distress, with many of them false positives. Aireon Locate is a cloud ADS-B-based service that allows an aircraft’s location to be pinpointed, taking the search out of search and rescue. Aireon Located has the potential to reduce the number of resources and costs which the federal government expends on SAR.
Using ADS-B signals, as part of a usage based cloud delivered billing engine, provides smaller airport authorities with the ability to tap into a new revenue source, which historically would require more administrative costs than potential revenue. Some GA pilot/owners take a dim view to paying landing fees and may not pay up. Collections is the next piece of the administrative puzzle that could require regulatory teeth to minimize bad debts. For BA operators, paying their fair share is a corporate culture. | W
