France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall • Hacker News Board

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

#541

Post by chopin » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 7:50 AM UTC

eternauta3k wrote: post #355

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…

I thought the fuel tank had to be relatively empty in order to land.

Not for all models. The smaller ones (B737 or A320) can land fully fueled. For this reason they can't vent fuel for an emergency landing.

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

#542

Post by isostatic » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 8:19 AM UTC

hayd wrote: post #538

isostatic wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the amount of money raised can then be spent on cleaning up the externalities.

I am very uncomfortable pricing the poor out of things. That's the fundamental issue with sin taxes like this.

If you want to help the poor then redistribute wealth, don’t allow people to destroy the planet.

A carbon tax could be used for a UBI, or for electric car subsidies, or for negative income tax

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

#543

Post by kumoflow » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 8:32 AM UTC

leetcrew wrote: post #463

kumoflow wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am in Europe. Travel between Porto and Faro (Portugal) by train is 5 hours versus 50 minutes by plane (ok, plus one for security) and 2-5 times as expensive. During the last 2 years I was doing this flight pretty much twice a week. It was the only way I could spend time with my kid, but still keep my job and work to support him. I also travel for work longer distances (NY, San Francisco and all over Europe) once or…

first of all, no one is talking about banning air travel or anything like that. the tax being discussed is only 1.5 euros for non-business class flights within the EU. this doesn't actually come close to offsetting the CO2 produced by you flying from Porto to Faro one way (according to this calculator [0]). you have a special case with your son, but most people don't need to fly outside of work. if you can already af…

I'm ok with taxing flights if we also tax pretty much everything else for the environmental externalities of it. My problem is when countries/politicians/ordinary people choose one or two items that don't fully affect them and try to lecture others about it. (not saying it is your case, just in general).

And for my case, it is about 4 flights a week (both ways * 2). It may not be much, but is an extra 25 euros per month. Will this make me stop flying? Not really, but I will be pretty sour about it so I don't see how it offsets anything (but to be fair, us Europeans are already used to be heavily taxed in pretty much everything, and while I won't really feel the cost of the 25 euros, others will, see yellow jackets and the gas tax). And I pay for my work flights since I work for myself ;)

For you to get an idea, I just checked flights for September and I can do a return flight for 36.97 euros and will take me 50 minutes (+ airport time, which is about 1 hour for me). Same trip by train is 5h50 and costs 64 euros (on promotion, regular price is 105 euros.

ps: I hate flying and travelling. I do it because I need to.

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

#544

Post by littlestymaar » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 9:33 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #299

littlestymaar wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can always do the transfer via metro (and there will be at most one change). The metro isn't very well suited if you travel with a lot of luggage though.

When I was transiting in Paris from Lausanne to Lyon, there was no metro connection between the Gares. That was 2006, things could be different now.

I'm puzzled: the Lausanne-Paris arrives in _Gare de Lyon_, which is also the station where you take the train to Lyon. Then on a Lausanne-Lyon via Paris you wouldn't even need to change stations.

I have and idea of what could have happened though: maybe you took a cheaper train which doesn't arrives or leaves in Paris itself, but in a train station in suburbs (Marne la vallée, Massy Palaiseau and Roissy Charles de Gaulle).

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

#545

Post by tuesday20 » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 11:36 AM UTC

zrobotics wrote: post #510

dewey wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 (awf…

I pay more than 9€ to go from NJ to NY in a greyhound bus!!!

How is it so low? Even with all subsidies, kinda hard to believe

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

#546

Post by goatinaboat » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 11:45 AM UTC

TylerE wrote: post #525

cheerlessbog wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have two Curtiss C-46 from 1945. Its interesting that its cheaper to continue to pay for the maintenance and fuel than lease something more modern.

Replacements don’t exist. Those old prop liners can operate off unimproved dirt strips, grass, even snow and ice - and off short runways too. Jets don’t like that. For back country missions the only thing maybe better than a DC-3 is a Basler... and that is a modernized DC-3 with reinforcements and turboprops for more power. They suck a lot more fuel than a plain DC3 though, which can be problematic as some of these f…

A C130 should be a viable modern alternative for those use cases, if economic

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

#547

Post by pimmen » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 11:53 AM UTC

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…

You can have a kickback, like Canada. Basically, you pay the carbon tax as a middle class person and then you get a decent amount of money back from the government to cover the damages, and everyone gets up to the same amount (which is like a thousand bucks or something). So, it becomes no biggy for a middle class family who took one flight during the past three years, but a celebrity who flies around with his private jet multiple times a week will feel the pinch.

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

#548

Post by pimmen » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 12:27 PM UTC

kumoflow wrote: post #543

leetcrew wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

first of all, no one is talking about banning air travel or anything like that. the tax being discussed is only 1.5 euros for non-business class flights within the EU. this doesn't actually come close to offsetting the CO2 produced by you flying from Porto to Faro one way (according to this calculator [0]). you have a special case with your son, but most people don't need to fly outside of work. if you can already af…

I'm ok with taxing flights if we also tax pretty much everything else for the environmental externalities of it. My problem is when countries/politicians/ordinary people choose one or two items that don't fully affect them and try to lecture others about it. (not saying it is your case, just in general). And for my case, it is about 4 flights a week (both ways * 2). It may not be much, but is an extra 25 euros per mo…

> Will this make me stop flying? Not really, but I will be pretty sour about it so I don't see how it offsets anything

Someone else who flies just as much as you and could make an effort not to will also feel sour about it and maybe make an effort to change the situation. Maybe that person can save up and buy a home someplace else, or wake up earlier to take the train to wherever that person is going.

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

#549

Post by londons_explore » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 1:09 PM UTC

chopin wrote: post #540

londons_explore wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so. Even a 20% fuel tax in the EU would probably make a few EU neighbour states lay down extra long runways so a plane can land, fuel up, and takeoff again, all without opening the doors or maneuvering/reversing. They could probably do 5 minutes with practice. It would save $10k easily for a big plane.

You can make it time efficient, but not fuel efficient. As well approaching and departing procedures add to the time, so you spend at least 30min on it. Add the diversion and you lose even more time. This would make only sense for very long flights. Refueling with passengers on board has safety considerations as well.

> but not fuel efficient.

It's totally fuel efficient. You burn fuel coming down to land and taking off again, but you save more fuel by not having to carry the weight of fuel for your whole journey, but instead only enough fuel to get to the next stop off point.

You could make it time efficient if you designed an airport specifically for this purpose. No passenger terminal. No steps/trucks. Drive in/drive out fuel fill stations. No delay to land or landing slots (since the airport can be built in the middle of nowhere with super cheap land it needn't be runway constrained).

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

#550

Post by zanmat0 » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 1:42 PM UTC

dasKrokodil wrote: post #539

late2part wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you have any idea how many carbon emissions are created with a two hour meeting? The network, the video servers, the laptop/desktops - the monitors, the A/C to cool each of those people at the distributed locations?

While it is valid to bring this up, I'm pretty sure the emissions and energy usage of a videoconference are minuscule in comparison to the flights that are replaced. Laptops will be needed in both cases, as well as A/C (if that is necessary at all).

I'm pretty sure the parent comment was in jest.