French Government Considers Tax on Expensive Plane Tickets to Fund Relaunch of SNCF

The government is considering tax the most expensive plane ticketsor those of First and Business classto partially finance the plan of relaunch of the SNCF estimated at 100 billion euros.

This new tax should appear in the finance bill, debated next fall in the National Assembly and bring in approximately “a hundred million euros over the period 2023-2027“, according to the Ministry of Transport. By way of comparison, the government also hopes to recover “several billionwith the tax on the superprofits of motorway concessionaires.

«The ecological transition and the modal transfer from the plane to the train must also go through this kind of device, explains the entourage of Clément Beaune, Minister of Transport, quoted by The Parisian. A priori, a person who already pays a high price for their ticket is less sensitive to the price».

Asked by theAFPAir France emphasizes that France is “the country that already taxes airlines the most“. The tricolor airline asks that the funds raised be used “to the decarbonization of the sector» and warns the government that, otherwise, «we are going to fall far behind in our decarbonization objective.” It calls on the government to adopt a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) sector to remain competitive during its transition to decarbonization. For comparison, a ton of SAF currently costs 5,000 euros in France, compared to only 2,000 euros in the United States.