Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

451–460 of 578 posts

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

#451

Post by azernik »

anticensor wrote: post #438
hokkos wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can tax fuel burned inside european airspace instead of fuel at rest once arrived at the airport. Also : >EU countries can end the decades-long exemption and tax kerosene on flights between them, according to legal experts. This could either be done at EU level through a series of bilateral agreements or by agreement between individual countries, the independent legal analysis for green NGO federation Transport &…

> You can tax fuel burned inside european airspace instead of fuel at rest once arrived at the airport. That idea would work in trains; planes do not have tracks.

They do have transponders, and EU airspace does have clearly defined boundaries.

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

#452

Post by rsj_hn »

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.

Yes, the huge taxes are generally for international flights, and I think part of the reason is that, as you say, there aren't a lot of options for those flights so they have a captive market and are thus better able to bear those taxes. If you start with punitive taxes on domestic flights in the EU, it will disproportionately hit the airline industry there.

As with many things, the game with taxes is how to make the incidence of the tax fall more on the consumer and less on the producer. If you can accomplish that, then the tax is more likely to get through because unfortunately we don't have consumer lobbyists anywhere as strong as the business lobbyists.

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

#453

Post by the8472 »

rsj_hn wrote: post #447
dewey wrote: post #167

Finally. It's really frustrating to see how heavily subsidized airlines, plane fuel and airports are and how big of a tax breaks they get when they come to a city. At the same time people are shamed for buying salad in a plastic bag when the big lever is somewhere completely different. Had the same thought yesterday when I saw: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1148317244893597696

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…

> if not the most heavily taxed, activity

In Germany consumer electricity prices have a comparable fraction of taxes and fees. So do salaries for high-paying jobs. If these levels are tolerable we can certainly go higher.

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

#454

Post by sgjohnson »

Udik wrote: post #434
sgjohnson wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - airlines can't fill their planes with really cheap seats, and empty seats seem like a ridiculous waste This has never been true. There is no money in Economy. Almost never has been. Airlines make money off premium cabins and business travellers who book flights a couple of days in advance. Example LHR to LAX return. https://i.imgur.com/SCjndu8.png Fare: £50 One flexible First class return on the exact same flight…

> On long haul flights, airlines probably[citation needed] operate Economy cabin at a loss. Interesting, but why do they do it then? Wouldn't be better to use all that space for more first/ business class seats?

PR? Marketing?

And not really. I've never seen First/Business cabin that was more than 70% occupied. Though I'm a leisure traveller, taking roughly 3-4 return flights a year.

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

#455

Post by buboard »

benj111 wrote: post #166
buboard wrote: post #131

Earlier 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…

This is the route from paris to algiers by car:

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Paris,+France/Algiers+%D9%85...

Not to mention for most of the world's immigrants (indian/asian) this is not even an option.

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

#456

Post by carlob »

the8472 wrote: post #453
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…

> if not the most heavily taxed, activity In Germany consumer electricity prices have a comparable fraction of taxes and fees. So do salaries for high-paying jobs. If these levels are tolerable we can certainly go higher.

Gas prices in most countries in Europe have a higher fraction than this, same for cigarettes.

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

#457

Post by namdnay »

rsj_hn wrote: post #447
dewey wrote: post #167

Finally. It's really frustrating to see how heavily subsidized airlines, plane fuel and airports are and how big of a tax breaks they get when they come to a city. At the same time people are shamed for buying salad in a plastic bag when the big lever is somewhere completely different. Had the same thought yesterday when I saw: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1148317244893597696

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

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

#458

Post by selectodude »

patd wrote: post #272
selectodude wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Doesn’t it only cover fuel that is already on board when the plane lands ? And the Chicago Convention seems to have been revised 8 times already (according to Wikipedia) so it’s not set in stone.

It covers fuel on board and fuel leaving the country.

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

#459

Post by seanmcdirmid »

magduf wrote: post #448
dawhizkid wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And a 3 euro flat tax for economy is small potatoes too. The original argument was that this would really hurt the poor. My counterargument was that flying is still a luxury, and the poor do not fly or fly frequently enough where this would actually be devastating to them. If anything the tax is too small to change anyone's behavior.

They're probably trying to make sure they don't charge so much that flying out of France becomes more expensive than some nearby city in a bordering country. But even so, these taxes are very, very low. Honestly, I wouldn't mind paying 10 Euros on a flight if I knew it was helping rail systems. It's cheaper than the stupid "convenience fee" that I have to pay for concert tickets.

Convenience fees are just immoral.

I wonder if this means flying out of the French side of Geneva airport would incur the fee while the Swiss side would not?

(Edit, it seems like the French side no longer exists after Switzerland entered the Schengen).

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

#460

Post by rq1 »

cs02rm0 wrote: post #380
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)

For comparison, Paris-Marseilles is about a 1hr20 flight. Maybe comparable given airport hassle these days, but that is on what is perhaps the best route in Europe for showing what trains can do. I doubt cost comes in to most train-flight comparisons and I'm not sure what the point of the tax would be if not to change behaviour.

You need to take into account the distance between the airport and the city center, the security checks, on-boarding, checking in, getting your luggage back... etc. It’s both time consuming and annoying.
Post reply on HN