Limburg fears loss of thousands of jobs due to air freight tax Interior

The government wants to introduce a tax on airfreight that, according to the province, will have an adverse effect on Maastricht Aachen Airport (MAA). The jobs of 3,300 employees at MAA and the surrounding region would be threatened by this.

MAA is surrounded by foreign airports. They don’t have such a tax. The introduction of the tax is therefore very detrimental to MAA, according to the province. “We call on you to exclude air freight from the flight tax,” writes the province, which also advocates a European approach to the tax.

“For freight carriers, a start from MAA is twice as expensive due to the freight tax: an average of 1300 euros extra per flight. That is of course a reason to leave from Maastricht, “writes the province.

Seek salvation elsewhere

Limburg fears that cargo planes will move to Liège, which also leads to more flight noise in South Limburg during the night. Unlike MAA, Liège does not have a night flight ban.

According to the province, air freight from MAA represents an economic value of 300 million euros.