Make frequent fliers pay more not less, French association says

Those who take frequent flights should pay more for their travel, not less, a French environmental association has said, hitting out at ‘air miles’ and recent ‘frequent flier’ discounts on some airlines.

Environmental campaigner network le Réseau Action Climat (RAC) is calling for a ‘taxe grands voyageurs (frequent travellers’ tax)’, in a bid to “penalise urban rich”, which it says are the main users of planes. 

The tax would work in the opposite way to the current ‘air miles’ loyalty system, which rewards fliers the more flights they take. In contrast, this new tax would mean that the more a passenger flies, the more the price of their ticket would increase.

‘Social justice’

Alexis Chailloux, coordinator of the RAC report on the issue, told AFP: “The ambition of this report was…not limited to the climate issue, but also to the question of social justice.”

The group states that levying such a tax is the only effective way to reduce air travel and its associated greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, as well as incentivising the most frequent fliers to reduce their air travel.

The association said that other ‘solutions’ such as synthetic fuels or biofuels “are insufficient on their own to comply with the Paris Agreement, and it is imperative to reduce air traffic now”. Air traffic accounted for 7% of France's CO₂ emissions in 2019, the group said.

The network claimed that introducing such a “frequent flyer tax” would reduce emissions from the air transport sector by 13.1%, generate revenue of €2.5 billion, and shift the climate penalty onto users who can most afford it.

‘Tax injustice’

Mr Chailloux said that the current system represents a “tax injustice”, and said that there are taxes on vehicle fuel and train electricity, but not comparable taxes on air tickets. He called air travel taxes “minimal”.

This is particularly unfair, he said, “given the sociology of air passengers who have the means to pay this tax”.

The report also said that reducing air travel would “secure the revival of the railways”.

Other proposals

The report’s other proposals include:

• A ban on private jets

• The abolition of short flights (technically, this is already law in France, but in reality some airlines can circumvent it on a technicality, such as the location of train stations vs airports)

• The introduction of a quota of one return flight per person per year.

Read also: Is France really respecting the ban on short domestic flights? 

The report comes just over a month after budget European airline WizzAir hit headlines for its ‘All You Can Fly’ deal, in which passengers can (under certain conditions) take unlimited flights annually across the Wizz Air network for €599.

Read also: Budget airline's €499 'all you can fly' year deal includes UK-France flights