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France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

reuters.com

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Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

#41

Post by rdtsc »

I've flown through a French airport once - Paris Charles de Gaulle and since have gone out of my way to not fly through it again. It was a hot mess. They lost the luggage, it was hard to find gates, parts of it looked outdated, customer service sucked. A year after, the ceiling at its _new_ terminal collapsed killing several people (https://www.thoughtco.com/charles-de-gaulle-airport-terminal...).

Maybe it was just me having a bad luck, but it was certainly enough to convince me to stay out French airports even if it means longer flights, delay or changing the duration of my stay.

Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

#42

Post by isolli »

Ultramanoid wrote: post #16
isolli wrote: post #5

Isn't the title misleading? From the article: "The new French tax will be 1.5 euros for flights within France." Unless "out of France" simply means originating in France, regardless of whether the destination is in France or not. Either way, the original title is better, I would keep it: "France to tax flights from its airports"

Thanks for the comment. I posted this with the original title as it was, they have changed it. I edited it just now, but I'm not going to keep checking to see if they change it again...

Maybe they changed it because it was not clear! I was also curious to know if I had misunderstood because I'm not a native English speaker. I know that "I work out of Berlin" means "I work in Berlin", so...

Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

#43

Post by crumpets »

Bayart wrote: post #18
cptaj wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that sucks. More freedom is good. More taxing won't help more people travel. That is, of course, the intention here. But that's not a solution, its pretty regressive.

Flying takes a pretty heavy toll on the environment, it should be discouraged as much as possible. If people want to travel, the continent's already covered with roads and rail.

Which road do you take to Iceland or NYC from Paris?

Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

#44

Post by realusername »

DocTomoe wrote: post #13

So, this will mostly affect CDG as a hub. IF that tax gets painful, people will move to LHR or FRA.

By starting with a small tax which won't affect much CDG, the strategy is probably for France to push it on a EU-level after that.

Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

#45

Post by dfilppi »

caymanjim wrote: post #38

This is simply rent seeking. It won't reduce flights, it's too small to incentivize any fuel efficiency changes, it's passed on to the consumer so it won't alter airline behavior, and while the article claims the revenue will go towards financing trains, it doesn't state how that will be implemented. Are they going to reduce fees on trains accordingly? Are they going to improve train efficiency? Are they going to bui…

Airlines dont pollute. Their customers do.

Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

#46

Post by jimmaswell »

XMPPwocky wrote: post #27
elohju wrote: post #21

Because in France ecofascism is becoming the #1 religion thanks to leftist propaganda. Government uses that to increase taxes.

Do you have a working definition of fascism here or are you using it as something closer to "a bad politics thing"?

That seems to be all it means these days.

Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

#47

Post by tyingq »

Bayart wrote: post #18
cptaj wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that sucks. More freedom is good. More taxing won't help more people travel. That is, of course, the intention here. But that's not a solution, its pretty regressive.

Flying takes a pretty heavy toll on the environment, it should be discouraged as much as possible. If people want to travel, the continent's already covered with roads and rail.

Is 3 euros, round trip, really going to incent different behavior?

Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

#48

Post by keiferski »

I am actually surprised that short-distance flights aren't taxed more in Western Europe. The train infrastructure in France is world class and can get you from Paris (North-Central part of the country) to Marseille (Southeast), a distance of about 500 miles, in 3 hours.

For Americans, this would be roughly equivalent to go from Boston to Washington D.C. (a trip that takes 7-10+ hours)

Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

#49

Post by baud147258 »

inflatableDodo wrote: post #15
cameronbrown wrote: post #10

I don't really understand what the purpose of this tax is. There's no alternative to burning fuel by energy density on an airline, so why go after flights? What do they expect them to do? If you're taxing petrol cars you'd expect electric cars to become more economically viable. Either way I disagree with carbon taxes. They're regressive, and ignore the fact that regular people are being badly hurt by them whereas th…

>What do they expect them to do? Use trains.

Except that trains don't have the same possible destinations, you can't (easily) take a train to a destination outside EU. I think the gov went in the wrong direction here, the tax for flights within France should have been the highest, to give more incentives for using the train

Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

#50

Post by Juliate »

cameronbrown wrote: post #10

I don't really understand what the purpose of this tax is. There's no alternative to burning fuel by energy density on an airline, so why go after flights? What do they expect them to do? If you're taxing petrol cars you'd expect electric cars to become more economically viable. Either way I disagree with carbon taxes. They're regressive, and ignore the fact that regular people are being badly hurt by them whereas th…

Do you agree carbon emissions (among others) contribute significantly to warming?

If not, conversation is indeed over and baseless.

If yes, what alternative do we have help reduce carbon emissions in the atmosphere? (because this is something to do, and fast now)

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