So as of today there’s a new tax for boarding planes from any Belgian airport. From what I’ve read, it boils down to this: 10€ for any destination<500km. For destinations>500km, if it’s to the Europe (EEE + UK Switzerland) it’s 2€, and 4€ for any destination outside of that.
[Soit-disant to encourage alternatives. ](https://i.imgur.com/dA30lOa.jpg)
I totally get the destinations<500km thing, flights to Paris or Amsterdam are ridiculous (though sometimes unavoidable if part of a connecting flight?). There are plenty of alternatives and they are usually also way more comfortable for passengers, so really no issue there.
But what alternative is being encouraged in regards to flights to US or India or South Africa? How does that make sense? Even Ireland or the South of Italy, trying to get there without a plane is minimum 2 days travel and probably an increased carbon footprint (I’m assuming a car would be needed at some point).
At the end of the day, an extra 2€ or 4€ isn’t making a huge difference, I know. I just dislike how it’s being painted as a way to encourage alternatives when it’s obviously just a simple tax because they can.
24 comments
Don’t question it, this is Belgium, they just want your money :’)
Maybe they’re hoping someone will bring airships back? Or to travel with freighters (which is a thing you can do)? I’ve had friends who traveled as far as Vietnam by train before the pandemic hit.
All kidding aside, dissuading people from flying is probably part of the intended effect.
My view is that this is a tax for the “rich”; Poor people can’t afford a (flying) holiday…
if 4-10€ more on things you maybe use once or twice a year is going to piss you off, you just wait. lol.
this tax probably costs more in admin then it profits.
I applaud this.
Can even be higher than this, when visiting tourist destinations its insane how crowded they have become vs 20 years ago.
Edit: i hope people realise there is not such a thing as a “the tourist”, some do travel sustainable and actually support the local economy. The last 20 years however you see the Ryanair tourist who hardly spends anything.
I haven’t understood if that’s applicable for connecting flights. Eg. If you want to travel to Japan and need to go through Paris, or Amsterdam, then do you need to pay this tax?
Let’s face it a real carbon tax on kerosene is long overdue.
This tax should be implemented on EU scale via a price hike of the landing rights. The money should be spend on an EU wide high speed rail and night train network.
The low amount of extra tax makes it a bit silly indeed.
I honestly think they need to be increased tenfold to make an actual difference. They should also stop exempting kerosine from taxes.
Flying should be discouraged if possible. You should need a good enough reason to fly (to wherever) to make the added tax not a big deal. If someone is travelling to places like the US or India, I assume they’ll be there for a while anyway, and the extra cost is fairly low per day of your stay. Of a total holiday cost, it’s a pretty low percentage.
A recent Twitter thread by VRT journalist Nico Cardone: https://twitter.com/nicocardone/status/1448176921628581890
A few years ago I used to fly BRU to AMS regularly. The thing is AMS is a huge airport and has lots of connections to smaller airports.
KLM gave the choice to fly or take the train between Brussels and AMS, flying was always significantly cheaper. Maybe 50 to 100 EUR cheaper, 10 EUR tax (x2) is something I guess…
The alternative is not to go wherever you intended to fly. I have family abroad too, so I understand your situation, but in this case I don’t mind paying the tax. Flights are probably way too cheap because the ecological impact is not priced in.
I was planning to go to Vienna, night-train is 400€ retour.
RyanAir flies 21€ for retour. How do you expect a student to pay for the train? I want to be eco-friendly but within reasonable margins.
This flight tax will just make it more difficult to travel around Europe for the youth without infinite money. I thought the EUs goal was to make movement within EU easier?
Okay 2€ to 4€ isn’t much, but it isn’t helping either.
EDIT: 400€ is for sleepers (an added luxury, not necessary) you can travel for 180€ for seated carriages.
As someone that actually flies Brussels to Amsterdam for connecting flights. The problem is that the thalys doesn’t start early enough to get a connection at Schiphol. And on the way back, the last thalys isn’t that late. So if you fly international, you are almost forced to take that flight. Political people sometimes lack certain pragmatism. Pretty sure almost everyone in those 6am flights would have been OK with a trainseat if it was an option.
It’s just a way to silence people asking for a flight tax.
I want flight taxes. More specifically, I want them to no longer be VAT-exempt and I want the fuel to be taxed as high as the fuel I use in my car. If that’s not allowed due to international treaties (which is the case), fine, but then I want a tax that is approximately the same amount.
Instead, we’re getting this completely silly 2 to 10 euro tax. Way too low to have any real impact but high enough so they can silence the people asking for a flight tax. “But we did a flight tax!”
I don’t get it,
Yall complaining about the fact that train are more expensive than plane but you also complain when plane prices are rising.
Yes it makes travel more difficult but we are not owned easy travelling. Nobody has ever had the NEED to go 500+km away 5 times a year to visit a town and post picture of his meal on instagram.
Just enjoy life close-by. Take hiking vacations in the area, drive ro south of portugal in 5 days visiting various destinations on the way…
I don’t know it would just seem fair to me top traveling to the other side of the world to enjoy a cocktail in a coconut on the beach?! Can’t we just all agree to have higher standardd of enjoyment!?!
It’s nothing more than an extra tax. I don’t know why they always keep insisting on giving an explanation. It won’t do anything good for the planet. It won’t make people take busses or trains, the tax won’t be used to comb t climate change, it’s just there as another tax (it is part of the tax shift).
It’s just like the “sugar tax”, which is not a health tax, but just another tax.
And they seem to forget that for pretty much everyone living in Belgium, there is an airport nearby in another country. For me Eindhoven is closer than Zaventem for example. No tax there. I do like Zaventem however, but it’s a pain to get there if you don’t take the train which will cost you a train ticket + diabolo fee + boarding fee. I’ll happily pay a friend to drive me 30 minutes to Eindhoven instead.
Flying to <500km distances is ridiculous anyway. Take more time and use flixbus/drive yourself or pay up the 10 euros if you want to go fast.
I understand the frustation on political point of view though. It is ‘another tax’ while they could just reduce benefits on kerosine or increase existing airport taxes. Now with this tax it looks like they want to blame us using non-ecofriendly transport while the ecofriendly ones (nmbs, de lijn…) are disproportional expensive af.
But I like flixbus, it’s so cheap I don’t know how their model is so sustainable xD
Penalising the consumers for travelling is more ridiculous considering the crazy amount of ghost flights with just few or no passengers being flown. Therefore, the introduction of the new tax will mostly help filling the pockets of the policy makers, nothing else.
> I just dislike how it’s being painted as a way to encourage alternatives when it’s obviously just a simple tax because they can.
It’s a tax to discourage behavior we don’t want.
You want to fly to the US, India or South Africa? Why should society subsidize that by taking on the cost of pollution instead of you?
All in all this post is just another example of how people may *say* they support doing something about climate change. But the second it costs you anything at all, fuck the climate. I just want to fly for cheap!
According to a [study of TML](https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2017/03/01/vlaming_betaalt_teweinigvoortransport-1-2905316/), society loses €199 per 100km that is flown. And here you are complaining you have to pay €2-10 extra. Come the fuck on. It should be way way more than that.
That’s the typical dumb “initiative” against the public.
Instead of taxing me, please stop giving money or fiscal exemptions to Ryanair and other low costs companies.
Clearly this tax is aimed to actually help battle climate change.. come now.
You are absolutely right, there is no proper alternative. Unfortunately, this new money source will not be used to create any. In the best case scenario, it’ll be used to cover up other financial depths to create some ‘positive’ news.
It has nothing to do with eco but all with taxes. It’s another useless tax by the eco-nazis of the so called Green Party in Belgium, called Groen! <- yes, with exclamation mark.
It’s even a joke for the 10,- on short flights. Short flights with Ryan Air are about 20-50,- if you are lucky. A similar train ride or alternative will cost you well over 100 (if not a couple of hundreds) euro.
It’s just a tax. Not to encourage alternatives.
Econ here: the economic reason behind this tax is to counteract Jevon’s paradox which states that as things become more efficient and less wasteful, this will be counteracted by an increase in demand, nullifying the gained increases in efficiency/productivity.
Aka flying is too cheap. Climate change in mind we have to disincentivize it. That’s what taxes are for.