Salem airport users speak out against company tapped to charge pilots aircraft fees 

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Pilots frequenting Salem – Willamette Valley Airport came out in full force against the company floated by the city to collect aircraft landing and parking fees, telling city councilors Monday the firm will drive pilots away from using Salem’s airport. 

Airport officials said Monday that contracting with Vector Airport Systems, the Virginia-based aircraft tracking and billing company tapped to run Salem’s airport fee system, is the cheapest and most efficient way for the city to collect fees from airport users. 

Salem city councilors voted unanimously Monday to impose the new landing and parking fees on aircraft that weigh 7,000 pounds or more as a way to shore up revenue for the struggling airport, which has been losing money since the reintroduction of commercial flights in 2023. 

Airport officials expect the fees to help balance the airport’s budget by generating between $50,000 and $100,000 annually. 

Airport Manager John Paskell said at Monday’s council meeting that it is technically possible for the airport to install its own aircraft monitoring equipment and to levy fees itself. However, the equipment costs and maintenance would fall on a city that is already financially strained. 

He said contracting a private company, which would take roughly 22% or 23% of the revenue from fees, was a cheaper and more streamlined approach. 

“I don’t know we could do even close to the level of accuracy,” Paskell said about the possibility of the airport building its own system. “Tracking airplanes and collecting landing and parking fees for the city is not a practical solution.” 

Brian Martin, the city’s public works director, said there is currently no contract in place with Vector and so seeking an alternative solution is still on the table.  

Hannah McLaughlin, a local pilot, expressed her concern about Vector in her submitted public comment telling council that Vector uses data in an invasive and burdensome manner. They also engage in poor business practices, she said.  

“Vector has a poor reputation in the flying community. I have not dealt with them personally, but I know that pilots who have that have submitted this to the public record. Vector has a reputation for falsely billing aircraft that either do not meet the requirements for fees at certain airports or were overflying and did not land,” McLaughlin said. “They have a reputation for having hard to work with customer service, and for making it extremely challenging to get false charges reversed.” 

McLaughlin said she brought up her concerns during a special Airport Advisory Commission meeting in December and said Paskell “seemed uninterested in the concerns the pilot community has about this.”

“Mr. Paskell has overestimated how much money these fees will bring in, especially when Vector is so unpopular,” McLaughlin said. 

She said partnering with Vector is bound to push the general aviation community away from Salem’s airport and harm the airport’s reputation. 

Scott Bragg, an aircraft owner and a flight test engineer for Garmin, also spoke out against Vector during Monday’s council meeting. He said using Vector takes away opportunities for locally owned businesses to benefit from aircraft fee revenues.

“Vector will take a portion of these fees as overhead and not support any of these local operations that are much better suited,” Bragg said. “If fees must be collected, let them support Salem as much as possible.” 

Bragg said the pilot community is also concerned about the satellite-based tracking technology used by Vector, which is part of the Federal Aviation Administration’s broader approach to modernizing the national aviation system. 

The technology “was designed for situational awareness, traffic avoidance, and general safety in the national airspace system. It was never meant for policing or tracking for the use of fee collection. Encouraging this is a gross misuse of this technology.” 

After speaking, Bragg asked those who came to the council meeting with concerns about Vector to stand, prompting dozens of attendees to stand. 

Director Martin told the council leading up to the vote that even if the council votes to implement the fees, the city doesn’t have the resources or infrastructure to begin charging fees for smaller aircraft. He said city staff are willing to look into how much other options would cost and bring back estimates to council in the coming months. 

“Even if you pass this tonight it’s going to take some time to get that contract set up so that we can start collecting fees,” Martin said.

Contact reporter Joe Siess: [email protected] or 503-335-7790. 

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