E U Carbon Tax

[nong38]

A report in the London Financial Times yesterday was reporting that Indian Airlines ( Air India and Jet) are not all happy with the propossed new tax along with China, the US and many more. Air India is not in a good financial position and an Indian Govt spokesman was hoping that there would be a rethink and was talking about the possibility of closing Indian airspace to European carriers.

The European Union at its very best, we need the money, give us the money, we are not interested in anything else or the consequences!

Why does life have to be so difficult.

[rakman]

And the Chinese told their airlines that long haul aircraft wouldn't be bought from Airbus, unless the EU withdrew the carbon tax.

[FarangBuddha]

Gotta "save the planet" in the long run and the real economy be damed! EU political correctness at its best.

[exeter]

The EU live in a world of their own and dont seem to consider others, my bet is when they get the heads out of the sand they will withdraw this idea to be discussed with other interested parties and thus not loose to much face .

The have to many people who are politically correct and involved in health and safety. Now, not content with individual contributions from the member countries they want to raise their own Europe wide taxes and that is the problem because when it starts the door will be openeing wider and wider to suck even more out of the people of Europe. Too many on a gravy train I am afraid.

[PattayaPhom]

Petrol, fags and booze are taxed to the hilt.....green taxes are the latest excuse for money grabbing facist states.

[KhunG]

The parasite class finally figured out how to tax the one thing they missed. Air.

[Ricardo]

For air-travellers to expect to fly totally tax-free, when our activities do appear to contribute to global climate-change, seems to me to be a case of special-pleading.

For Chinese or Indian airlines to demand to be exempted, when every other airline also pays the tax, seems either arrogant or special-pleading once again. Exempting only their own flights really would be unfair.

Personally I'd rather that the tax should be globally-agreed and applied, and on the non-renewable fuel burned, since this would reward airlines which invest in more-efficient aircraft or promote biofuels or operate their planes with higher load-factors, but getting global cooperation on something like this would be difficult.

It would be helpful if the EU could demonstrate, and I suspect that they can't, that all the revenues raised will be directed, towards improvements in airports/air-traffic-control or to supporting renewable-enegy initiatives.

Meanwhile the BRIC countries expect to be allowed to continue to pollute, without paying anything for the damage caused to the planet, and at the expense of more-efficient more-developed countries. Is that really still sustainable ?

I don't like paying the increased-prices, any more than the OP and other posters, but nor do I expect to continue to free-load.

[exeter]

For air-travellers to expect to fly totally tax-free, when our activities do appear to contribute to global climate-change, seems to me to be a case of special-pleading.

For Chinese or Indian airlines to demand to be exempted, when every other airline also pays the tax, seems either arrogant or special-pleading once again. Exempting only their own flights really would be unfair.

Personally I'd rather that the tax should be globally-agreed and applied, and on the non-renewable fuel burned, since this would reward airlines which invest in more-efficient aircraft or promote biofuels or operate their planes with higher load-factors, but getting global cooperation on something like this would be difficult.

It would be helpful if the EU could demonstrate, and I suspect that they can't, that all the revenues raised will be directed, towards improvements in airports/air-traffic-control or to supporting renewable-enegy initiatives.

Meanwhile the BRIC countries expect to be allowed to continue to pollute, without paying anything for the damage caused to the planet, and at the expense of more-efficient more-developed countries. Is that really still sustainable ?

I don't like paying the increased-prices, any more than the OP and other posters, but nor do I expect to continue to free-load.

It is just another tax into the general treasuries, how much will actually be used to combat Global Warming if you believe in that?

Air travel is the new car, easy taxes from a captive audience.

Of course the world should get together and try and get the most updated efficient aircraft, but, new planes cost money and at the moment do one appears to have any! Either way with the state the world is in economically this really is not the time.

[Ricardo]

It is just another tax into the general treasuries, how much will actually be used to combat Global Warming if you believe in that?

Air travel is the new car, easy taxes from a captive audience.

Of course the world should get together and try and get the most updated efficient aircraft, but, new planes cost money and at the moment do one appears to have any! Either way with the state the world is in economically this really is not the time.

If it were that easy to tax air-travel, it would surely have been done before ? But I recall vaguely that there have long been international-agreements against taxing aviation-fuel itself. Perhaps time to revisit those.

Both Boeing & Airbus are still manufacturing planes like hot-cakes, not to mention the new Chinese & Russian narrow-bodied jets, or the Brazilians. They must be going somewhere. Perhaps to China & India, whose economies are growing very-rapidly, and where air-travel is similarly growing apace, often on low-cost no-frills carriers. Much of the world is not in recession, that's why global air-traffic is still rising, fairly robustly.

And aren't they the countries/airlines supposed to be complaining the loudest about ADT ? I smell humbug !

I myself regularly fly with Jet Airways (India), referred to in the FT-article, and find that they operate the latest B777-300s & B737-800NGs, so someone (I suspect the financial-lessors) must still have the money to buy them ?

And it would make some sort of longer-term sense to direct new-investment towards long-term energy-efficient/saving productive-projects, whether it be biofuels or wind-farms or more-efficient aircraft or (specific to Thailand) better railways, rather than merely supporting the unemployed of Farangland.

As stated ("I suspect that they can't") I do share your doubts, about whether the EU is actually using this newish-tax, properly to achieve anything useful. In particular I have my suspicions about who carbon-trading really benefits.

[JeffreyMcCollum]

SImple !

Either don't fly to EU or all nations impose a tax doubler on all flight comiing from the EU

See how they and their airlines like it

[Ricardo]

SImple !

Either don't fly to EU or all nations impose a tax doubler on all flight comiing from the EU

See how they and their airlines like it

But the "tax doubler on all flight comiing from the EU" would equally apply to Jet Airways & the Chinese airlines, and only make them even less happy, than they already are ?

The point is that the new higher-levels of APT in the EU do apply to local European airlines too, this isn't some discriminatory-tax, applying only to emerging-world airlines.

It's equally affecting the European carriers, and affecting demand for longer-haul package-holidays, for example Monarch (a popular UK mainly-charter airline) just cancelled their order for B787s, because demand has fallen for the destinations these had been intended to serve.