In the price of a plane ticket there is of course the price of transport but also taxes, many taxes. You will realize it at the time of checkout by seeing their amount sometimes disproportionate to the price of the trip or in any case never negligible it does not always appear clearly how they break down.
Here is to see a little more clearly.
What are the taxes on a plane ticket in France?
The taxes that apply to an airline ticket are very diverse and have names that sometimes make them incomprehensible even when the airline details them.
1°) Civil aviation tax (FR tax)
It is used to finance the functioning of the DGAC (Civil Aviation Authority) and the costs of operations and air traffic control not covered by other charges.
That’s for the theory. In practice, it has increased logically over the years and today only a small part (15%) finances the DGAC, the rest falls into the State budget which, without seeing or knowing, recovers a few hundred million euros that are not used to finance air transport. This tax brings in approximately 450 million euros each year, of which only 67 million go to its primary destination.
2°) Airport tax (XT tax)
It is collected for the benefit of airport operators to finance safety, fire and rescue services, security, environmental control measures and bird control around airports. It also contributes to the financing of biometric control equipment.
It is collected by the airport but does not concern the fee that the airline pays for the use of the infrastructure.
3°) Airport charges (QW and QX taxes)
These are the fees paid for the use of airport infrastructure. They are of course collected for the benefit of the airport operator and are set on an airport-by-airport basis. The QW tax applies to domestic flights and the QX to international flights.
4°) Fuel surcharge (YQ/YR tax)
Collected by the airlines to compensate for a fluctuation in the price of oil.
5°) Tax on airport noise pollution
It finances aid to residents of the airports concerned and encourages the airlines to modernize their fleets.
It brings in just under 50 million Euros each year.
6°) Solidarity tax (IZ tax)
Also called the Chirac tax after the genius who thought that French airlines were far too competitive and that a ball and chain had to be tied to their feet to restore healthy competition in Europe.
More seriously, it was created to finance the UNITAID program which aims to contribute to the financing of health in developing countries. It brings in about 200 million Euros per year. France is one of the very few countries to have adopted the program and is financing nearly 70% of the program alone.
But financing health in developing countries is fine for two minutes …. The government has decided to limit France’s participation in the financing of UNITAID to 210 million Euros. Any euro collected above this amount does not go back to the airlines but to the state budget.
It is this same solidarity tax that will include the recently voted ecotax. The raison d’être of the tax will thus be totally diverted in the general indifference.
7°) VAT
Oh well, we don’t think about it, but naturally the purchase of an airplane ticket bears a 10% VAT. Remember that VAT for passenger transport is not deductible for businesses (and for once even the SNCF is concerned). This only applies to domestic flights, as international flights are exempt from VAT (as are international train tickets)
VAT is of course applicable to the above mentioned taxes.
What is the weight of taxes on the price of the plane ticket?
Of course the relative weight of taxes decreases with the price of the ticket. And everything also depends on airport fees, some airports being much more expensive than others (if RyanAir operates in Beauvais and not in Roissy it is not because of the charm of its cathedral).
Taxes are not detailed because they are….reimbursable!
If I try to use my memory a little I remember that “before” I used to see these detailed taxes when I bought a ticket, which is almost not the case anymore.
I was surprised to see them mentioned during a recent booking on the Lufthansa app. Here is how they break down for a business class ticket Paris-Frankfurt-Stockholm then Gothenburg-Frankfurt-Paris.
A total of 291,49€ in various taxes for a 509€ ticket.
But why are they not always mentioned in such a transparent way? Maybe because after all the passenger doesn’t care, he has no other choice than to pay them.
But also a little because by omitting to detail them one does not give all the elements to the passenger who sometimes has the right to ask for the refund! Many people don’t know it, but when you miss your flight, no matter what the reason is, you can ask the airline for a refund of the airport taxes QW and QX (or, if applicable, to the travel agency that sold the ticket, which is responsible for recovering the amount from the airline).
The reason travel insurance never reimburses airport taxes is because the airline is required to do so.
It also happens more rarely that you can be reimbursed for FR, XT, YQ and IZ if the airline’s contract of carriage specifies it.
Are airline tickets too taxed?
Well, it’s hard to say. Indeed one can find the weight of the taxes too important but at the end that allows a whole sector to be self-financing contrary to for example the train which costs to the taxpayer “a crazy dough” each year.
The sector is so self-financing that the government has even gone so far as to divert some of the taxes levied on airlines from their original purpose in order to transfer the proceeds to its own budget.
As for knowing if France taxes too much, we will see that, contrary to popular belief, this is not necessarily the case when compared with foreign countries.
NB: the information is up to date at the date of publication of the article, the fiscal creativity of our elected officials being limitless things may have changed when you read this article.
Photo : airline fare by Tatsuo Nakamura via Shutterstock
