Flight taxes: French minister in favour of raising controversial fees
Low-cost airline Ryanair has already threatened to halve its French services if taxes are raised
Any extra fees would be added on to the cost of traveller tickets, Air France has said
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A new French minister has said that she is in favour of raising the tax on flight tickets in France, calling it a “measure of ecological justice”.
The previous government, under Michel Barnier, had announced plans to introduce higher taxes from January 1, 2025. But, after the vote of no confidence, the measure was cancelled, and airlines said they would refund any passengers who had already paid the extra fees on booked tickets.
Now, the new Minister for Public Accounts, Amélie de Montchalin, has said she is in favour of a rise in the tax, la taxe de solidarité sur les billets d’avion (TSBA), and is considering the move in the forthcoming new budget.
“I'm in favour. It is a measure of fiscal and ecological justice,” she told Le Parisien on January 5. “The 20% of the population with the highest incomes are responsible for more than half the expenditure on air travel.”
Extra costs for passengers
When the previous rise was announced, Air France said it would need to ask its passengers to pay the extra cost, with increased fees of between €2 and €120 per ticket, depending on the travel class. It said that without this, it would be at risk of a deficit.
The tax would be €9.50 (up from €2.63 currently) for tickets on European flights to or from France. Passengers travelling on long-haul flights (more than 5,500 kilometres from France) would be hit hardest by fee rises.
Air France has said that for flights of 5,500 km or more (e.g. this would include most of the US, South America, southern Africa, most of Asia, and Oceania):
Industry response
The original announcement sparked a mixed response from the airline industry.
Some felt that the fees would be fairly minimal compared to the overall prices of tickets, and that the measure would be good environmentally. However others said that the extra cost would mean that only the richest travellers could afford plane travel in future, and would cause problems for French aviation.
One industry manager told Le Parisien that the fee would render French airlines, particularly Air France, non-competitive.
“Companies will prefer to take off from other European airports in order to keep prices low,” they said.
Ryanair threatens to halve French routes
Low-cost Irish airline Ryanair has already pledged to significantly reduce its routes to and from France if a higher tax is introduced.
It said that services would be at risk of closure across 10 regional airports in France in the event of increased fees, reducing flights by 50%. Ryanair currently serves 22 regional airports in France (25 overall) and has not specified which airports would see services reduced or ended.
Read more: Ryanair threatens to end flights to ten regional French airports over tax plan
“We will be closing these routes because with this tax they are not economically viable,” said Ryanair’s Jason McGuinness via a press release, in November 2024.
“Instead, our planes will fly to countries like Spain and Poland, where there is no aviation tax, or Italy, Hungary and Sweden, which have abolished them,” Mr McGuinness added.
Sweden has recently abolished airline taxes leading Ryanair to open ten new routes to the country, as well as to add two bases for its aircraft.
Read more: Ryanair does U-turn on starting flights to and from major Paris airport
Read also: Bordeaux airport: ‘Ryanair pulling out was our worst-case scenario’
In October, Ryanair closed its hub at Bordeaux-Mérignac airport, ending all flights to and from the city in a dispute over fleet basing costs. And in December, the airline cancelled planned routes from Paris Orly airport to Bratislava and Bergamo, after CEO Michael O’Leary reportedly “vetoed” the services.
