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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

#461

Post by bongobongo »

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…

You are mixing in airline surcharges with taxes.

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

#462

Post by benj111 »

buboard wrote: post #455
benj111 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

So we shouldn't do anything to curb co2 emissions and flying because 1 group of people will find it slightly more expensive/ more awkward to go home? (I say home, if they're economic migrants they're going home? But then they aren't French voters so on some level should they get a say? On the other hand if they're 'settled' migrants that call France home, they aren't going 'home' so on some level it's a summer holiday plus).

Don't build that road, the pedestrians will have to walk out of their way to cross it. Don't build that cycle path, it takes space away from cars. Don't build that pavement.... Every transport decision has tradeoffs, no transport solution can apply to everyone. There will be immigrants from Australia who will also be affected, I have no solutions for them either.

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

#463

Post by leetcrew »

kumoflow wrote: post #433
leetcrew wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're regressive, and ignore the fact that regular people are being badly hurt by them whereas the rich won't even feel it. how many people actually need to fly outside of traveling for work? in America, a high tax on gasoline would actually be devastating to the livelihood of a lot of poor citizens. being priced out of frequent air travel doesn't sound like a massive hardship.

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 afford to fly twice a week, my guess is you can also afford another twelve euros per month to offset a fraction of the damage. if your employer really needs you to travel, I'm sure they will find a way to come up with an extra eighteen euros.

> I don't see why X or Y is needed (because I don't needed it), so everyone else is selfish and ruining the environment, but what they think is essential (new shiny gadgets, brand clothes done by kids in Asia, etc) are always forgotten.

I do agree with you here. what we need is a fair taxation scheme to offset all environmental damage. just make a list: how much does it cost to undo the damage of one flight, one ipad, etc. then you let people buy what they want, but make them pay to fix the environmental damage. when the price reflects the true cost, people will figure out what they actually need and budget accordingly. there will be some things (cars in rural areas are an obvious example) where it will simply be too damaging to the poor to fully tax immediately, but most people will find that there's a lot of stuff they can reduce their consumption of.

[0] https://co2.myclimate.org/en/flight_calculators/new

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

#464

Post by scatters »

leetcrew wrote: post #275
gourou wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A possible alternative would be to tax carbon emissions

to the extent this is possible, this is probably the best solution, since emissions are not directly proportional to number of passengers or even fuel use.

Note also that it has only recently been established that water vapor emitted at cruising altitude has an unexpectedly long residence time and thus an unexpectedly high GWP, perhaps as much as the CO_2 emitted, thus doubling the impact over that same amount of fuel burnt at ground level.

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

#465

Post by pmart123 »

dewey wrote: post #373
wayoutthere wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole passenger air travel industry (airlines, aircraft manufacturers, airports, etc) is subsidized because they’re not profitable on their own. But a robust and affordable air travel network is a capability the business world needs to operate our economy. Boeing and Airbus are two of the most heavily subsidized companies in the world, and the airlines themselves aren’t far behind. They’re both high-risk, low-mar…

I don't have a source for that but I'd say if the airlines etc wouldn't be so subsidized there would be higher focus on developing better engines, electric planes or other technologies than in the current state where losses will just be covered by the tax payer. They wouldn't just stop operating and the "business world" would most likely not collapse. I've talked to a bunch of people that get flown around by their co…

As the 737 Max has shown, this isn’t exactly the industry you want to “move fast and break things” by attempting to try out every late and great technology. Then there is just an issue with the business model in general. Customers typically make their purchasing decision on the lowest cost option, things like the weather are out of your control, there’s huge capital investments needed, and there’s a high risk if anything goes wrong.

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

#466

Post by alexhutcheson »

Udik wrote: post #440
vonmoltke wrote: post #147

Earlier 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.

I keep saying it, we need trains with sections that can detach to stop at stations (and reattach at the next passing train after leaving the station) :). Btw, does anybody know what is the marginal energy cost of a single car added to a train running at constant speed?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slip_coach

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

#468

Post by vojnovski »

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…

The taxes here amount to 8,33% of the total ticket price.

The rest are actual charges that airports/government services levy for work done, as well as the famed fuel surcharge (usually recently noted as international/domestic surcharge) that airlines use as an wildcard addendum to the base fare of the ticket.

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

#469

Post by brohee »

boudin wrote: post #204
toomuchtodo wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

France is primarily nuclear powered, so electric trains there have extremely low carbon impact. https://www.electricitymap.org/?wind=false&solar=false&page=... (ElectricityMap.org: France)

Yes, it heavily depends on how the energy the trains runs on is produced.

Even with high on carbon emission electricity, the train benefits a lot from not carrying its fuel.

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

#470

Post by teraflop »

freedrock87 wrote: post #413
LynxInLA wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would incentivize planes to fly with as little fuel as possible. That could lead to some flights running out of fuel when unforeseen issues arise. No matter how you tax the fuel, there are going to be some perverse incentives.

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.
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