TRANSPORTATION: French Airfare Tax Hikes; Air-France & ADP

Les Echos is carrying headlines the French gov. will raises tax on airplane tickets in the upcoming 2025 budget that would see a near tripling in total revenue collected. This will come out of the solidarity tax (not the civil aviation tax/CAT) and see;

• Economy tax moving from €7.51 (per passenger) to €42 (distance 1000-5000km) and €60 (over 5000km)
• First or Business class moving from €63.07 to €100 (1000-5000km) and €200 (over 5000km)
• Intra-European flights <1000km - fate undecided apparently but government is sympathetic to fact 40% of domestic ticket is in taxes vs. 17% for a Paris-NYC flight.
• Private jets to get hit the hardest with taxes reaching up to €3000/passenger for long-haul.

Risk on above to Aeroports De Paris is long-haul travel is taken to departing flights outside France.

Air-France did respond to the paper pointing out it is '"the largest contributor to this tax, with more than 140 million euros collected in 2023 for Air France and Transavia", or more than 30% of the total. "The project under study, which represents a non-progressive doubling of TSBA revenues, is unprecedented. Its financial burden could not be borne by airlines alone and would necessarily lead to an increase in the price of airline tickets"'

Not a pretty backdrop looking into next year for the already struggling co.

Les Echos piece (translated) here