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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

#261

Post by rayiner »

standardUser wrote: post #209
blondie9x wrote: post #135

About time. Traveling is killing the planet. One of major causes of climate change. We need to take it seriously. I'm glad France is willing to take a bold and brave step to support the environment.

Business travel is killing our planet. All the family vacations in the world can't compete with giant companies constantly shuttling thousands of employees all around the globe to attend meetings and conferences.

Yuppies hunting for “experiences” is killing the planet. Leisure travel dwarfs business travel: https://www.statista.com/statistics/207103/forecasted-number....

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

#262

Post by dewey »

7373737373 wrote: post #248
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)

At least in Germany, taking the train is insanely expensive.

If you buy the ticket at the wrong time yes. If you take it more often and use a BahnCard it’s not too bad either and definitely not “insanely”.

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

#263

Post by slg »

eat_veggies wrote: post #239
slg wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible" ~ Stanisław Jerzy Lec Sure, you won't be able to make a measurable impact by yourself. However your mindset quickly leads to a tragedy of the commons type response that leaves us all in trouble. We should all take a more proactive approach to this in both our private life and in our professional work.

tragedy of the commons is solved by regulation, not by hoping that individuals or corporations will discipline themselves

I agree. We need regulations to change and that includes both taxes and subsidies which are the main topics of the article and the top comment respectively. But in order to change those things, we need political will and that political will comes from self discipline.

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

#264

Post by ars »

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)

> I am actually surprised that short-distance flights aren't taxed more in Western Europe

It does seem the like tax is backwards. They barely tax the flights that could be replaced by rail, but have higher taxes on the ones that can't.

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

#265

Post by 0xffff2 »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #176
0xffff2 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 onl…

I'm not an aerospace engineer, so I can only repeat what I've seen in presentations. (I'm a software engineer at an aerospace research organization.)

One specific area that I recall being investigated is the ability to decouple power and thrust. That is, convert some of the power generated by the existing turbines into electricity and use that to drive an electric fan in (a) non-traditional location(s). This can have complex aerodynamic interactions that I don't really understand in detail, but the take-away is that it can reduce drag and thus overall energy required for a given flight.

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

#266

Post by colordrops »

eat_veggies wrote: post #239
slg wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible" ~ Stanisław Jerzy Lec Sure, you won't be able to make a measurable impact by yourself. However your mindset quickly leads to a tragedy of the commons type response that leaves us all in trouble. We should all take a more proactive approach to this in both our private life and in our professional work.

tragedy of the commons is solved by regulation, not by hoping that individuals or corporations will discipline themselves

Who writes and enactsn the regulation?

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

#267

Post by raverbashing »

magduf wrote: post #214
raverbashing wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yawn There are much worse polluters, sure, travel is a contribution to greenhouse gasses, but I guess fuck people for wanting to take a plane somewhere Though the tax is small, so this seems more like a money grab than anything else

If they use the money for improving or subsidizing train service, then that's a good thing because it's moving more travel to trains, which are far more ecological. If you really have a problem paying a paltry 1.5 Euros for a flight, then maybe you should be saving your money instead of taking trips.

Yes, as I said the tax is low enough to not bother most people

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

#268

Post by donarb »

benj111 wrote: post #224
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When was the last time you took a train from Paris to New York? Right after I sold my beachfront house in Arizona.

Surely for the joke to work you'd have to suggest that sea levels were much lower, not higher. Eg: 'When I sold my Manhattan mountain lodge.'

The beachfront Arizona joke is usually not about rising sea levels but rather about earthquakes in California causing that state to break off from the continent.

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

#269

Post by gourou »

selectodude wrote: post #246
gns24 wrote: post #192

The UK already taxes flights in a similar way. Whilst this does feel like progress, it would be much better to tax the fuel instead of the passengers. Virtually all other fuel is taxed, so it's strange that jet fuel is exempt. The problem with taxing passengers instead of fuel include: - it doesn't encourage improving the efficiency of planes - airlines can't fill their planes with really cheap seats, and empty seats…

It's illegal to tax fuel for international flights. Domestic fuel is already taxed but the Chicago Convention in 1944 set the ground rules for the ICAO and international air travel.

A possible alternative would be to tax carbon emissions

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

#270

Post by mytailorisrich »

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)

I think they also do direct trains from London to Marseille in about 6 hours these days.
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