Flight taxes increased, but will we really fly less?

We can no longer ignore it: flying is getting more expensive. The flight tax has been increased to 26 euros from 1 January and airlines will also pay their CO2 emissions on European flights. How does this affect our behavior?

60 percent of all Dutch people sometimes fly and 40 percent don’t, according to one report of the Knowledge Institute for Mobility Policy (KiM) since 2018. For most people, costs are a reason not to fly, other reasons are fear of flying, health and the environment.

“The rule of thumb is that if flying becomes 1% more expensive, there will also be 1% fewer flights,” says Jasper Faber of environmental research agency CE Delft. With airline tickets under one hundred euros, a few dozen more will certainly have an effect, according to Faber.

ABN Amro has calculated what these measures mean for various European flights. Calculations are made with the current CO2 price. This price is expected to increase in the coming years.

More expensive tickets therefore lead to fewer flights. But according to Faber, on the other hand, if people become more prosperous, they will fly more.

“Most of the world’s population has never flown, as they get richer they will fly more.” Before corona, aviation was growing at around 3% a year. According to Faber, further steps must be taken to dampen that growth if we are to move to more climate-friendly aviation.

According to Milieudefensie, this could be done by limiting the flight behavior of a specific group: that of the frequent flyers. They account for a large part of air traffic. According to the Kim report, 8% of the population makes 40% of air travel.

Milieudefensie therefore supports a progressive tax on air passengers. Until recently, there were no taxes on either kerosene or airline tickets. If both were subject to normal tax rates, the fee would be a few dollars for one trip.

According to Milieudefensie, this fee should then be doubled per flight. So, for example, 40 euros in tax for the first flight, 80 euros for the second flight, 160 euros for the third and 320 euros for the fourth. For subsequent flights, the tax remains at the rate of the fourth flight.

CE Delft has calculated that this would lead to a 23% reduction in air traffic and 3.8 million tonnes less CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions per year. Also not negligible: it would make the exchequer 2.3 billion euros a year.

Bram van Liere from Milieudefensie: “With the current flat tax you hit everyone equally, but it’s much more fair to charge more for those who fly more. After all, they cause much more climate pollution.”

According to CE Delft, such a progressive tax certainly has an effect. Faber: “Everyone is price sensitive, including the rich.” According to Faber, processing is difficult, because what if someone flew three times from Schiphol and twice from Brussels?

Van Liere believes the progressive flight tax has a good chance. “It is an effective measure with broad support, we have left it out orient yourself. But there is still no parliamentary majority for that.” A tax and customs administration spokesman says there are no new air passenger tax plans in the pipeline.

Greenpeace wants to go one step further: ban private jets. The environmental organization wants this because emissions per person on a private plane are 5 to 7 times higher than on a commercial flight. Added to this is the use of private aircraft increased.

It affects a small part of aviation, so the contribution to total emissions isn’t that bad, but the contribution per person is very high, says Van Liere: “It’s more about equality. Because you can cause more climate damage than the other: this undermines support for a fair climate policy”.

According to Faber, the current measures are not necessarily troublesome for the industry: “The tricky thing about aviation is that they operate in an extremely competitive market, which makes it very difficult to do more than what is required by law. If you do, you lose This type of general rules can therefore really help the sector in terms of climate policy, and this is also necessary to survive”.