Included in the thousands of pages of bills that passed the Florida Legislature, several pieces of “oddball” legislation safely landed on Gov. Ron DeSantis’ desk concerning airports and received approval to become law. 

Allan Penksa, CEO of Gainesville Regional Airport (GNV), said the 2025 session impacted airports more than usual. A couple of the changes had been forecasted, and some of the bills bring a higher administrative burden that Penksa questions.  

“For an airport our size, when you tack on regulation, it becomes kind of busy work that we have to do when we’re all very engaged in day-to-day operations and construction and things like that,” Penksa said. 

Penksa heads a 33-person staff at GNV that oversees maintenance, security, baggage, finances and administration. Plus, the airport staff must keep in close coordination with the Transportation Security Administration, Federal Aviation Administration, airlines and the general aviation terminal run by University Air Center, the fixed base operator.  

The main bills that touched on airports concerned eliminating the tax on jet fuel, requiring maintenance plans for critical infrastructure, adding contract information to a public website and monitoring for planes equipped with weather-modification equipment.  

House Bill 7031: Jet Fuel Tax 

Since the early 1990s, when it was enacted, Penksa said Florida had whittled down the tax on jet fuel over the decades until it only brought in $25 million across the state.  

Though not a lot compared to the overall Florida budget or even the infrastructure portion, Penksa said the funds may impact the state’s aviation budget.  

“The problem is it was always told to airports that if the tax goes away, it’s not coming out of money that’s specifically set aside for aviation development, and we’re getting mixed signals now that it will be,” Penksa said. 

Penksa said the tax was intended to help airport infrastructure, but he said the actual benefit changed as the state increased exceptions and reduced the tax amount (4.27 cents most recently). He said airlines had lobbied against the tax, pointing to states with a lower jet fuel tax while ignoring states with a higher tax.  

The bill will bring cost savings to airlines and private pilots, and supportive lawmakers said they believed the elimination would boost Florida’s aviation sector and potentially attract more routes. Lawmakers have advocated for the elimination for years, Florida Politics reported. 

Senate Bill 1662: Comprehensive Airport Infrastructure Program 

Florida will now require all airports to create a comprehensive airport infrastructure program and maintain documents for five years on the maintenance and service of the systems included.  

According to the bill, airport infrastructure means the facilities, systems and structural components of an airport necessary for the safe and efficient movement of people and goods.  

Penksa said that definition includes everything at the Gainesville airport—and any other.  

“I don’t think there’s a single project that we do that’s not meant to improve safety and efficiency of airport operations, except for maybe hangar projects,” he said.  

He noted airports lobbied and were able to roll back a provision that would have required sending annual reports on the program. But airports will still need to have the plan ready when asked.  

Penksa pointed to other legislation that requires all contracts, contract amendments, salaries and other documents to be posted to an airport website. He said those documents have always been readily available upon request, so he’s not sure what benefit comes from having the documents online.  

Senate Bill 56: Geoengineering and Weather Modification 

Filed by state Sen. Ileana Garcia, R-Miami, this bill criminalizes the dispersion of any chemical or apparatus into the atmosphere within Florida’s borders for the express purpose of affecting temperature, weather, climate or intensity of sunlight.  

The bill received a significant amount of attention and sparked discussion of similar measures in other states and Washington, D.C. 

The bill pulls airports into the issue to serve as sentinels, responsible for reporting any planes equipped with sprayers or other apparatus that could be used to spread weather-modifying chemicals.   

At a meeting with the Gainesville-Alachua County Airport Authority (GACAA), Penksa said the airport would likely need to work on an agreement with University Air Center for its response. He said the airport staff doesn’t see all the planes that land and take off in a day.  

Penksa said it’s another piece of legislation that adds administrative burden, and risk, to the airport.  

What happens if an airport accidentally misses a plane rigged with spray equipment and the state finds out, Penksa asked. Or if the airport keeps a contract with a vendor on its website for only four and a half years instead of five?  

Penksa said someone will have to track the new requirements on top of their normal job. He said large hubs were required to keep more contracts and documents available online, but small regional airports were exempt.  

“It’s tough for small businesses to make it because of the regulatory overhead, and some of it is necessary, and some of it, if you really look at it, is like, what’s the bang for the buck here? So I’m always sensitive to that—me personally,” Penksa said.   

GNV is self-sufficient and must generate revenue to keep its staff. Penksa said large airports, that have more impact on state-wide travel, can deal with increased administration. But he said airports are being painted with a broad brush, with requirements applied to all, even though each is very different in terms of revenue sources and size. 

He said a lot of the new state reporting requirements and plans are duplicates of what airports already present to federal agencies. 

“The FAA has a robust program for inspecting airports; TSA has a robust program for inspecting airports,” Penksa said. “Now we’re seeing the state is getting into some of that, and so it’s just, potentially, another layer of bureaucracy.”