Briefing

T&E Position Paper on Aviation Ticket Taxes

February 1, 2006

This position paper has been published in response to enquiries from stakeholders and the media about the potential for environmental benefits resulting from the French government’s proposed “airline-ticket solidarity tax” which will be introduced in July 2006 to raise development funds.

T&E is strongly in favour of taxes on aviation tickets, such a tax can contribute to the objectives of sustainable development. The benefits can be described under three headings:

  • Environmental: it lowers the environmental impact of aviation by slowing down the growth of demand for air travel;
  • Economic: it contributes to a fairer tax system particularly because international aviation tickets are currently exempt from value added tax (VAT).
  • Social: the tax will be used for development purposes and will be paid by the richest segment of society – those that fly.

Related Articles

View All
Press Release

Avoiding contrails on night and winter flights is aviation’s fastest climate win - new T&E study

A new analysis by T&E shows that 25% of European aviation’s contrail-related global warming comes from night flights in autumn and winter, which make ...

Report

How to scale up contrail avoidance in Europe?

Opportunities for scaling up contrail avoidance in harmony with air traffic management

Opinion

The EU’s investment giant needs to step up on clean transport

There are welcome signs that the European Investment Bank intends to tackle transport poverty via the ETS2. The institution should also ramp up suppor...