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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

#501

Post by nutjob2 »

namdnay wrote: post #457
rsj_hn wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

International Air Travel is one of the most heavily taxed, if not the most heavily taxed, activity. It's not unusual for the taxes to exceed the ticket price. Here I just looked on kayak for a flight from SFO to Berlin. Here is the price breakdown: Ticket price USD 465.00 Taxes, Fees and charges USD 540.52 --------- International/Domestic Surcharge USD 350.00 APHIS User Fee USD 3.96 Immigration User Fee USD 7.00 Cust…

Most of these “taxes” aren’t really taxes in the sense of the tax on petrol or alcohol. They’re charges to cover the direct cost of flying, a bit like a toll road

Taxes pay for roads and socialized medicine, in the case of petrol/alcohol/cigarette taxes. Just because they're not direct or itemized, doesn't mean they don't apply in a similar way.

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

#502

Post by kalleboo »

rlpb wrote: post #243
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…

> Virtually all other fuel is taxed, so it's strange that jet fuel is exempt. "Without any international agreement on taxing fuel, it is highly likely that moves to impose duty on international flights, either at a domestic or European level, would encourage ‘tankering’: carriers filling their aircraft as full as possible whenever they landed outside the EU to avoid paying tax. Clearly this would be entirely counterp…

Some countries with high gasoline taxes situated next to countries with low gasoline taxes have anti-tankering laws for motorists (see Singapore vs Malaysia). That could be one solution.

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

#503

Post by squiggleblaz »

teraflop wrote: post #470
freedrock87 wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ICAO already regulates the reserve amount of fuel required to be carried. This isn't a valid argument

ICAO sets a minimum amount of reserve fuel, not a maximum , so this is not a valid counter-argument.

On the contrary:

1. Tax the fuel in a plane when it leaves the airport (i.e. including the fuel the plane imports). 2. Airlines will reduce to the amount of fuel planes leaving the EU fly with to dangerously low levels. 3. ICAO prohibits planes from flying with dangerously low levels.

Point 3 entirely deals with the problem of point 2.

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

#504

Post by Ericson2314 »

rayiner wrote: post #229
philshem wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why we can’t have nice things

We can’t have nice things because people in the US live in an almost continuous band of mid-density urban agglomeration from Boston to DC, and it’s hard to reach most of the population through just a few stations. The most noticeable thing about European cities, to my American eyes, is how they just... end. Drive from Munich airport to the city, and it’s farmland in between. Drive from Dulles to DC, and it’s strip ma…

Land value tax and carbon tax!

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

#505

Post by Ericson2314 »

wcoenen wrote: post #394
dorfsmay wrote: post #385

Why are they taxing flights rather than fuel? There's nothing wrong with "flying"! What's wrong is how they get their airspeed, namely by burning fossil fuel. Also those prices are insulting. There is no jet fuel tax in the EU. This gimmick tax is less than what people driving cars pay in taxes on their fuel for a tank of gas. Governments want to increase tax on car fuels (hence the yellow jacket movement) but still…

Airlines are already included in the EU cap and trade scheme. That's effectively a fuel surcharge for CO2. (When that happened, the US disliked it so much that they passed the "European Union Emissions Trading Scheme Prohibition Act" to prohibit US carriers from complying. And China threatened to cancel airbus orders. As a result, flights that go outside of the European Economic Area are not covered by the scheme.)

So sad...

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

#506

Post by TylerE »

somecontext wrote: post #494
wayoutthere wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what has happened — the 787 is the result, and is hugely popular with airlines. But the operational life of a big jet is measured in decades, and there are plenty of 50-year-old airframes in regular operation today.

For some context in case anyone is curious: putting together information from various websites suggests that the following is the oldest plane in commercial service today. https://m.planespotters.net/airframe/Boeing/737/5Y-CGV-Zone-... It is a Boeing 737-200 and it has been in service for 43.7 years.

Hardly.

There are still DC-3's in commercial operation, and production of those ended in 1942.

http://www.buffaloairways.com/ is one operator.

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

#508

Post by dang »

0xNippon wrote: post #496
0xNippon wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? It's my opinion and is true. And is probably the lowkey opinion of many other people. I'm literally in Tokyo right now cause Japan subsidizes travel instead of punishing people for it. Honestly fuck hackernews. Y'all are the actual assholes. I wasn't being mean or a dick in any way. "Unsubstantive" my ass.

And further. When I do have an actual real and legit point to make I'm shadow banned. I bet there's thousands of others in my position.

When we ban established users, we tell them we're banning them and why. Shadowbanning is for new accounts that show signs of either spamming or trolling—especially serial trolling, i.e. someone we've banned before and whose new account indicates more of the same.

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

#509

Post by schoen »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #500
schoen wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't you be more likely to make that connection in Geneva rather than in Paris?

Sorry, I meant Nantes, not Lyon. Come to think of it, I’ve never been to Lyon, not sure why I got those two cities mixed up. It wouldn’t make sense to go to Paris just to go to Lyon. :)

Aha! According to Google Maps, there are some options for making this journey today that will use the Paris Metro, but you would still have to change metro lines en route between Gare de Lyon and Gare Montparnasse (the "one change" that littlestymaar mentioned)

It's possible that these options already existed in 2006 but were complicated or inconvenient enough that no one or no web site suggested them to you.

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

#510

Post by zrobotics »

dewey wrote: post #450
rsj_hn wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

International Air Travel is one of the most heavily taxed, if not the most heavily taxed, activity. It's not unusual for the taxes to exceed the ticket price. Here I just looked on kayak for a flight from SFO to Berlin. Here is the price breakdown: Ticket price USD 465.00 Taxes, Fees and charges USD 540.52 --------- International/Domestic Surcharge USD 350.00 APHIS User Fee USD 3.96 Immigration User Fee USD 7.00 Cust…

Take-off and landing account for a lot more pollution than a flight in cruising altitude on long trips. That's why we usually talk about the problematic domestic flights where trains are an alternative. There's not really a good alternative for long haul flights. Flights within Europe are not that heavily taxed, otherwise I wouldn't be able to fly Berlin - Brussels for 9 Euros.

Wait, Berlin to Brussels for €9? Good lord, that is far too cheap. For example, the distance is roughly equivalent to Denver-Albuquerque. Kayak's cheapest quote is $119 one way, scheduled 1 month in advance. I knew flights in Europe were cheaper, but how is it possible to operate profitably at that price? Kayak shows $23 for Ryanair Berlin-Brussels.

For comparison, I had a vehicle breakdown and needed to take an (awful) bus that distance in the US, and it cost far more than $23 (IIRC, it was ~$75 and took 18 hours).

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