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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

#101

Post by rdtsc »

realusername wrote: post #61
rdtsc wrote: post #41

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 They lost the luggage, it was hard to find gates, parts of it looked outdated, customer service sucked.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…

I had a pretty good experience on my case, nothing to say really. The passport control queues were pretty optimized and things worked as they should. I've definitely seen much worse airport than that.

Ah ok. It was close to 15 years ago for me so maybe they have improved and I've just held a consumer grudge for too long.

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

#102

Post by baud147258 »

inflatableDodo wrote: post #81
baud147258 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

>Except that trains don't have the same possible destinations I do not know of a commercial airport without a train station. There do however appear to be plenty of rail stations that do not have airports. >you can't (easily) take a train to a destination outside EU. Britain is about to test this theory. But also, that is nonsense. Passenger trains leave and enter the EU all the time.

> I do not know of a commercial airport without a train station.

Could you contact me when I would be able to buy a Paris-Tunis train ticket, please?

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

#103

Post by buboard »

nine_k wrote: post #30
frenchman99 wrote: post #22

I think there is this thing called the train.

Specifically in France the train has a near-zero carbon footprint, because it's electric, and the electricity comes from nuclear power.

Well looks like we need nuclear planes

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

#104

Post by flexie »

hrktb wrote: post #59
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…

The purpose of the tax is to recover the external cost of flying. Ideally there are alternatives to flying, but it's not a requirement: as long as flying has an environmental price, recovering it through tax is a decent logic. We can discuss the offered price, or how the tax could be structured, but I don't think the approach is unreasonable on its face.

But close to nothing is being recovered. We would recover more or less the same if we introduced a tax on bad weather to be paid by those suffering from it.

The money collected with this tax may or may not reduce air travel and will be spent on government employees, welfare distributions, healthcare, roads, military etc as all other taxes and only a fraction will be spent on improving the environment.

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

#105

Post by perfunctory »

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…

> I just don't see how this helps.

Just curious, what would be your favorite solution(s) of the climate crisis?

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

#106

Post by sgregnt »

robjan wrote: post #99
sgregnt wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also account for a disproportional share of taxes. For example in Israel the richest 20% percent pay 80% of taxes (If I remember correctly)

But they don't get rich without the labour of the other 80%.

They get rich because they provide value for the people. The more value they prove the richer they get.

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

#107

Post by simias »

benmdi wrote: post #2

Based on recent events, I'm sure this will be well received...

The fact that airplane fuel wasn't as heavily taxed as gas was actually one of the arguments of the gilets jaunes. "We're poor and we can't buy gas to go to work, meanwhile rich people fly to the Caribbeans with subsidized fuel."

Keep in mind that, AFAIK, traveling by plane is significantly more mainstream in the USA (probably due to the huge distances and lack of viable alternatives) than it is in Europe and specifically in France.

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

#108

Post by acomjean »

keiferski wrote: post #48

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)

As an american who's taken the day long (not high speed) trip from Boston to DC, I was amazed how fast and easy to deal with the French Rail was. I only took Paris->LeHarve and Reims >Paris routes. But wow! The subway in Paris worked pretty well too.

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

#109

Post by benj111 »

inflatableDodo wrote: post #81
baud147258 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

>Except that trains don't have the same possible destinations I do not know of a commercial airport without a train station. There do however appear to be plenty of rail stations that do not have airports. >you can't (easily) take a train to a destination outside EU. Britain is about to test this theory. But also, that is nonsense. Passenger trains leave and enter the EU all the time.

"I do not know of a commercial airport without a train station"

Leeds Bradford

One is planned to be built though.

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

#110

Post by mgbmtl »

isolli wrote: post #60
mgbmtl wrote: post #37

They say it will "help support the environment", which could mean through funding of greener initiatives, R&D or level the playing field (although the tax is really low/symbolic, in my opinion). It makes sense to tax flights in order to subsidize rail for short-distance trips. I would have expected a higher tax on flights outside the EU, so that people change their habits (although then you need a carbon-tax sort of…

Related: I was surprised to learn recently that short-distance trips by plane actually have lower CO2-emissions than long-distance ones, because the plane does not need to carry so much fuel just for later use.

Perhaps, but it's still really cheap to take a weekend flight, and alternatives are available. Seems like a valid issue to tackle.
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