I wonder if this will roil the working masses like the planned gas taxes did. Maybe it will take a while until the work stoppages and lay offs kick in.
France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall
171–180 of 578 posts
Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Also, expect more European countries to follow. The Dutch government is intent on doing this too; either on their own, or (preferably) on a European scale.
I doubt they would do it on their own, many of the trips via schiphol don’t have Dutch endpoints, which is Europe’s biggest hub.
Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall
#173I 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…
I think they expect people to fly less; similar to many other “sin” taxes like those on alcohol or tobacco.
I'd argue it's a bit of both -- it's a sin tax, and a pigovian tax. Sin taxes _are_ meant to cut down on use, while pigovian taxes aren't meant to cut down on use, rather, make up for external damage (such as to the environment).
Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
> For Americans, this would be roughly equivalent to go from Boston to Washington D.C. (a trip that takes 7-10+ hours) Half of which is stops... I would love Amtrak to start a service that is just BOS NYC WAS.
In a perfect world it would be an hour between each stop: DC > Philadelphia > NYC > Boston
Let's add in the BWI airport too. And while we're at it add Baltimore too. But that's it!
Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because a lot of immigrants use air travel and they don't really have an alternative. A 2-day adventure involving trains, cars, ferries,hotels is much more environmentally (and physically) costly than a $300 flight.
"A 2-day adventure involving trains, cars, ferries,hotels is much more environmentally (and physically) costly than a $300 flight" Based on what? Sea travel is really quite efficient, so are trains, especially when we're talking about French trains powered by French nuclear. And why are immigrants a reason that its regressive? Low paid eastern Europeans aren't going to be flying around Europe, well paid international…
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Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't believe there is technology even on the horizon which would make this remotely feasible. The best of electric aircraft at the moment can fly for 90 minutes carrying two people; allegedly aimed at the flight training market. Except that gives it about enough endurance for a single lesson and it'd then need to be recharged for 3-4 hours before it could fly again. Compare this to a Rotax powered trainer which bu…
You are correct. There are people working on this, but the best estimates I've seen are that hybrid-electric airliners are ~30-40 years from commercialization and fully electric simply isn't feasible without a fundamental breakthrough in the battery energy-density space.
Even hybrids only make sense to me in the context of aircraft having the ability to taxi using electric motors, only starting their engines at the holding point (turbine engines burn a significant amount of fuel even at idle). I believe Airbus have a patent on this idea.
Otherwise turbine engines are run close to their designed maximum continuous thrust for the majority of a flight. It's not like a car where they only need ~20% of their maximum power in cruise.
Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall
#177I 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…
Business class taxes are 3x-6x economy, so corporations/rich people are paying more. Flying as is is a luxury, economy class or not, and we shouldn't forget that.
Value added taxes sure, but this is a flat head tax, I don’t think biz class is going to be charged more than economy class.
Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall
#178I 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…
> I don't really understand what the purpose of this tax is.
They tried taxing Diesel but it didn't work out. The people started to revolt. Now they turned to airplanes which has a much timid audience.
Gotta find some way to finance that lavish bureaucratic lifestyle.
Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the alternative to flying?
At least for flights around Europe, taking the train. Flight in Europe are very cheap. It's actually cheaper to fly from London to Newcastle than it is to get the train, and it takes roughly the same time. For all flights the alternative is just not to go. Instead of flying to the Caribbean for a holiday, go some place closer and take the train, instead of flying for a business meeting, just call in. If it's worth th…
As much as I worry about global warming, this antagonizing view doesn't help
"Paying for the damage" is this some kind of joke? What about all the other polluters? Shipping? Coal plants?
Macron got the Yellow Jackets by hating on people that depend on cars to do their job, because wow, if you don't live in a place with public transport and already pay a substantial amount of tax in everything else and earn less than the people in the capital you should pay more right? You're the bad guys
Wow pat yourself in the back for not taking a straw and taxing those "big bad" travelers. Then wonder why your tax revenue goes down every year or people hate you.
"Oh but sleeper trains" yeah, also known for the constant robberies and lawlessness inside them.
Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall
#180Earlier 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.
I went to a business trip from AMS (Schiphol) to WRO (Wroclaw). Wroclaw airport does not have any rail station (the nearest is a kilometer away). We had to take the shuttle bus to the train station in Wroclaw city centre.
The train from AMS would probably have taken over a day. Excluding check-in and luggage drop-off, flying took less than two hours.