Arizona legislation targeting the use of ADS-B data for automated landing fee collection has advanced in the state House, with sponsor Rep. Matt Gress arguing that tying financial penalties to a mandatory safety broadcast creates a perverse incentive for pilots to deactivate equipment that air traffic control and other aircraft depend on for collision avoidance and surveillance. The bill would prohibit Arizona airports from using ADS-B signals — the automatic position, altitude, and identification broadcasts transmitted by aircraft under FAA mandate since January 1, 2020 — as the triggering mechanism for assessing and collecting landing fees. The practice has become increasingly common at smaller, understaffed general aviation airports that lack the personnel to manually log arrivals and departures, and third-party vendors have developed commercial platforms that cross-reference ADS-B receiver data with aircraft registration records to automatically generate fee invoices sent to owners.
The safety argument at the core of the legislation is technically sound and tracks closely with longstanding FAA guidance. ADS-B Out is required under 14 CFR 91.225 for operations in Class A airspace, Class B and C surface areas, above the ceiling of Class B and C airspace up to 10,000 feet MSL, and in Class E airspace above 10,000 feet MSL, among other designations. Deliberately deactivating a transponder to avoid surveillance — and by extension, automated fee collection — in those areas would itself constitute a regulatory violation, but enforcement is difficult and after-the-fact. More critically, a pilot who powers down ADS-B equipment on approach to an uncontrolled airport disappears from the traffic picture of other ADS-B-equipped aircraft in the area and from any ATC facility providing advisories. In high-traffic corridors around the Phoenix basin, where VFR and IFR traffic regularly mix across Class B and Class D shelves, degraded situational awareness carries real midair collision risk.
For working pilots — particularly those operating Part 91 piston singles and light twins into smaller Arizona fields, as well as charter and fractional operators making fuel stops at uncontrolled airports — the legislation would effectively close off one avenue by which airports attempt to recoup operational costs from transient traffic. The fee collection model using ADS-B data emerged partly because the honor-system self-reporting of landings at unattended fields was widely ignored, leaving airport operators with little revenue despite significant runway and ramp maintenance costs. Some operators have welcomed the automated billing as fair enforcement; others have objected on grounds that ADS-B data was never intended to function as a toll collection mechanism, and that using it as such conflates safety infrastructure with commercial transactions in ways that could erode pilot trust in and compliance with the broader surveillance ecosystem.
The Arizona bill sits within a larger national conversation about the secondary uses of ADS-B data. The same broadcasts that feed ATC radar displays are simultaneously harvested by a global network of receiver hobbyists and commercial flight-tracking firms, and the FAA's LADD (Limiting Aircraft Data Displayed) program exists specifically because some aircraft owners — including high-profile corporate flight departments — sought to suppress their position data from public aggregators. Automated landing fee collection represents yet another derivative application, and Gress's argument essentially positions the Arizona legislation as a prophylactic measure against a safety externality that the FAA has not yet formally addressed through rulemaking. Whether other states follow Arizona's lead will likely depend on how broadly the ADS-B billing model spreads among general aviation airports facing funding pressure, and whether the FAA ultimately issues guidance clarifying permissible versus impermissible uses of ADS-B data by non-federal entities.
For corporate flight departments and Part 135 operators with significant Arizona exposure, the practical near-term impact is limited — these operators typically have established fuel and handling relationships with fixed base operators that handle fee settlement independently of ADS-B tracking. The larger significance is precedential: if Arizona codifies a prohibition on ADS-B-based fee enforcement, it establishes a state-level policy framework around a safety system that the FAA mandated as federal infrastructure, potentially prompting other jurisdictions to similarly legislate the boundaries of how that infrastructure can be monetized. Pilots and operators should monitor whether the bill advances to the governor's desk and whether the FAA weighs in, as any federal preemption argument — grounded in the agency's exclusive authority over airspace and air navigation facilities — could ultimately render such state legislation moot or force a clarifying federal rulemaking on the question.