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The End of Cheap Europe Flights? France Proposes EU-Wide Minimum Price
- eb0la 3y agoStarting in 2024 airlines will also need to pay to get carbon emission permits. (https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/eu-agrees-law-make-airlines-pay-more-pollute-2022-12-07/ https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/eu-agrees-law-m...), with are now free. I believe it will raise a bit prices in 2026 but not too much.
- reacharavindh 3y agoThe price is most determined by the competition and acceptable margins. As long as carbon emissions permits are applied universally at the market level making sure no one carrier can subvert those fees, it is likely that the rise in ticket prices would be much lower than the rise in taxes to the airlines. As a side-effect, I’m wishfully dreaming that trains will become cheaper and make more attractive against short-haul flights.
- ZeroGravitas 3y agoThere's some movements to reduce taxes and fees for trains to make them more competitive financially too. Makes sense. (A similar approach is also taking hold for home heating and EV charging, no point taxing something you are trying to encourage and that will then cost you more money elsewhere)
- throwawaymobule 3y agoShould have less of a per-ticket effect on most low cost carriers. Since their priority is totally filling the plane. I'm interested in what kind of minimum price they want to set, as I really like how cheap it is to fly around Europe.
- stavros 3y agoWhy set a minimum price, instead of taxing each flight for how much CO2 it emits and letting the economics sort themselves out?
- Arnt 3y agoYou mean a tax a percentage? One of France's neighbours taxes petrol sales at 65c/l, not the percentage you might be thinking of as tax. It was done that way because a flat tax fit the political purpose of the tax. So what's the political purpose? I'd guess that the goal is to reduce the difference between the apparent very low price of flights and the average price actually charged by the airlines, so that flying won't seem so cheap. Ie. the goal of the initiative is to correct a false impression of the price of flying, which is not a matter of economics at all and not something economics can sort out.
- stavros 3y agoHm, I don't understand this. What causes the apparent low price? Do you mean that they make it so the cheap flights are extremely cheap, and subsidized by the more expensive flights, as a marketing ploy?
- Arnt 3y agoThe apparent low price is caused by advertising and word of mouth. Everyone knows that Ryanair sells €10 tickets from A to B, see? And Ryanair really does, a few seats per plane. The average actual price is the average of the total price paid, which is not just the first few seats per plane, and which also includes all those taxes and extras. If people make travel decisions before buying the tickets (as they're almost forced to), then some/many of them will base the decision of how to travel on the word-of-mouth price they've already heard rather than on the price they'll see at the end of the purchase process.
- stavros 3y agoI see, thanks, so the EU is basically trying to stop the marketing tactic. That makes sense, though it's not about stopping "cheap flights" then (I haven't seen a 10 € ticket with Ryan in years).
- malermeister 3y agoShort haul flights in Europe are too cheap, for sure. But trains are often too expensive, it's a problem on both sides. I hope they tax planes more and use that money to subsidize rail.
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- freilanzer 3y ago> I hope they tax planes more and use that money to subsidize rail. That sounds like a good plan. I don't think lobbying will let us, though.
- jacooper 3y agoSure just continue to make your life worse for no reason. Trains aren't an alternative, especially when they take double the time a normal airplane would.
- vintagedave 3y agoThere's a strong argument that your life will be worse when climate change hits (as it already is.) Convenience at this level is very short-term thinking.
- jacooper 3y agoAnd how much will this affect europes emissions? Almost nothing while affecting citizens lifes in a bigger way.
- Sankozi 3y agoAll CO2 emissions are just a 1000 of "almost nothings".
- johngladtj 3y agoMy life will certainly be worse, not because of any effects of climate change, but as a result of EU policies that make my life worse.
- olalonde 3y agoWould you give back the ~1 degree we gained over the last 100 years for the standard of living we had 100 years ago? Most people wouldn't take that trade, yet I see a lot of people advocating for economic de-growth or decreasing life standards over the next degree... Personally, I'd rather take the next degree and fly around the world. In 100 years, if those 2-3 degrees becomes an actual problem, everyone will have AC, everything will be electric, and the climate will be back on track for another ice age.
- dagw 3y agoespecially when they take double the time a normal airplane would. If trains took double (or even 3 times) what an airplane took they would definitely be an alternative. Given the choice between a 1-2 hour flight and a 3-5 hour train ride, I virtually always choose the train. Especially since the train drops me in the centre of the city I'm going to The problem is they often take 10+ times what the airplane takes. From where I live to Paris or Zurich is either a 2 hour direct flight from the airport 30 minutes down the road or literally 20+ hours and 5-8 transfers by train.
- bilianak 3y agoWith the whole green energy movement the affordable future means for transportation lean towards trains, yeah.
- freilanzer 3y agoIf only trains were reliable and affordable - in reality they're shit. Almost always late, crowded, bookings oftentimes not working, more expensive than flights, pets and bicycles cost extra, ...
- Cockbrand 3y agoFortunately, not all European countries are like Germany regarding their railway network.
- dagw 3y agoOther than Switzerland, which European countries have a significantly better rail network than Germany? Certainly not Italy, Spain, UK, Norway or Sweden. The Netherlands was pretty good to be fair, but building a train network in the Netherlands is kind of like playing on Easy mode.
- lxgr 3y ago> Certainly not Italy When was the last time you’ve taken a train in Italy? There’s an impressive high-speed network these days.
- malermeister 3y agoAustria!
- Cockbrand 3y agoAlso Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Poland come to mind.
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- jiofj 3y ago[flagged]
- doingtheiroming 3y agoThis is straightforward protection for Air France and the other big airlines. Cheap flights are used to make sure that seats are filled. Minimum pricing will mean more planes will fly with empty seats and therefore less efficiently. There will be fewer flights, but the ones that remain will be more expensive and more polluting on a per-seat basis. The wealthy will continue to pay and enjoy less crowded planes. Bonus! Yet another case of the environmental Baptists providing cover for the polluting bootleggers.
- hiq 3y ago> There will be fewer flights, but the ones that remain will be more expensive and more polluting on a per-seat basis. So less polluting in total, which is at least one of the goals? > The wealthy will continue to pay and enjoy less crowded planes. If there are less planes available and flying is less practical, "the wealthy" might start considering taking a train instead. Trains are mentioned in the article so I think that's yet another goal. I'm not sure what you're suggesting instead. This proposal is not perfect because nothing is.
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- fakedang 3y agoThe wealthy in Europe go by private jets. The upper middle class travels by business class (some of them fly via rented private jet too, if they have an expensive hobby, or if they're flying as part of work), and don't really care for the price either. It's the middle middle class who will be shafted once again. Just observations of my circle of private flyers. This proposal is bullshit of the Eurocrat variety, since it's meant to put all the blame on the middle class, instead of on the former. France could have proposed shifting all the EU entities in Strasbourg to Brussels, which will have an immediate positive environmental impact. But obviously the canards in the French govt and the EU won't.
- true_religion 3y agoHow wealthy can you actually be if things as basic as how much your transportation costs still worries you? The wealthy will continue to flit around on private jets, large SUVs, super cars, or even yachts if they are considering taking the trip slowly.
- jacknews 3y agoA better way to achieve the desired effect of fewer flying miles (if that is the intention) would be to increase fuel taxes etc. Minimum prices just cut off the low end of the market, and seems obviously designed to protect the big/more-expensive players and their wealthier customers.
- rasz 3y agoWhat fuel taxes? :)
- codekansas 3y agoThe US used to have a fixed prices for flights, set by the Civil Aeronautics Board. There ended up being a lot of gimmickry with how airlines competed with each other - for example, airlines would do stuff like fly more flights than they needed to, so they could point to all the empty seats and ask the CAB to raise prices for their route to offset the money they were losing. But maybe this time price controls will be different.
- lr1970 3y ago> so they could point to all the empty seats and ask the CAB to raise prices for their route to offset the money they were losing. Strange market logic. Normally you lower the prices to increase demand and fill those empty seats. Raising prices will only make more seats go empty.
- codekansas 3y agoWell prices for those customers were relatively inelastic (think, business flights being comped by the employer, airlines having quasi-monopolies on routes) so the airlines knew they could raise prices without impacting demand. Conversely lowering prices likely wouldn't impact demand either. The sensible thing to do under normal market conditions would be to fly fewer flights, but when a central planner is setting your prices it changes the logic.
- rickdeckard 3y agoIt seems to be really complicated to reach consensus to change the EU Energy Taxation Directive, which currently prohibits taxation of commercial aviation fuel. It's ridiculous how the market is artificially skewed in favor of aviation, while (most of) the same EU member states struggle to compete with their OWN train service... I'd say the EU should tax the fuel for flights within EU and pump the money into a connected (and centrally bookable!) railway-network.
- Ekaros 3y agoWhy not just set some quota per year. Like 8 flights per person?
- criddell 3y agoThat's an interesting idea. Let people who don't fly sell their quota to people who do fly.
- olalonde 3y agoThat's how it should be done IMO. But the quota should be directly on the thing you want to cap, which are emissions and not flying per se. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissions_trading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissions_trading
- Ekaros 3y agoMaybe there should be also some sort of exponential component. So more quota you buy more you have to pay extra tax on it...
- criddell 3y agoThere is a benefit to keeping the rules as simple as possible. Capping the number of flights is simpler to understand. Most of the problems with flying are fairly well correlated with number of flights. Trying to directly cap emissions seems like a good way to make the program fail before it even starts. Do you penalize fliers who end up on an older, less efficient jet? Takeoffs burn a lot of fuel so do you penalize fliers who take flights with a layover? If a plane flies half-full, do the passengers pay more?
- olalonde 3y agoThat's not how it would work. If an airline company plans to emit X amount of CO2, they need to buy the right to do so. The cost would only be indirectly paid by consumers through the cost of their ticket. You can think of it like a currency that polluters need to spend (or more accurately, eliminate, since there is no recipient) when they pollute. Capping and trading is the more simple solution. Instead of putting various restrictions and limits on a ad hoc basis (often influenced by lobbyists and special interest groups) for dozens and dozens of activities, you have just one unified system.
- rickdeckard 3y agoFrom the article: "In France, half of all flights are taken by just 2% of people. In the U.K., 15% of travelers take 70% of flights and 8% of the Dutch take 42%." I wouldn't expect i.e. these 2% (!) of people in France who make up 50% (!) of all trips to change their traveling habits just because the minimum price was raised. They likely pay significantly more on traveling each month already. Sounds like a commercial aviation fuel tax would be more effective, with those 2% of people then paying 50% of all aviation fuel, instead of lower-income occasional travelers randomly paying more...
- malermeister 3y agoThat still leaves a whole other 50% of trips that might change traveling habits.
- rickdeckard 3y agoNo, they would also be affected by the fuel taxation, possibly equally hard due to their comparably lower overall budget for traveling.
- malermeister 3y agoThat's what I mean! If you have 2% of people doing 50% of trips, those people probably don't care about the cost. You do, however, also have 98% of people doing the other 50% of trips. There's a good chance some of those 98% do care about the cost and might not fly if the cost is higher, e.g. you might decrease the number of trips taken.
- rickdeckard 3y agoAh okay, then we mean the same thing :)
- 4gotunameagain 3y agoFirst build a Europe wide bullet train network, then make flights unaffordable. Europe needs travel infrastructure, and the world needs less pollution. You cannot pick one, solve both.
- theonlybutlet 3y agoPerhaps once they've built a bridge/tunnel from France to Ireland.
- matthewfelgate 3y agoSurely a UK-Ireland bridge/tunnel would make more sense.
- theonlybutlet 3y agoOfcourse. I'm being facetious. France proposed increasing prices, Ireland's only quick direct way reaching other countries within the European Union, perhaps if it's direct to France, France can pay for the link.
- Ekaros 3y agoAs a Finnish person, I think we should strive also to improve connectivity between Finland and Sweden and Finland and Estonia. After that solution for train travel between Finland and Poland could be considered.
- gampleman 3y agoWhat cheap flights? The routes I usually fly have already risen 100%+. Not really the right time to artificially inflate prices...
- olgeni 3y ago"Green transition" in a nutshell.
- matthewfelgate 3y agoI wonder if you could have some kind of personal allowance, say 10 flights a year and any more than this you start getting taxed heavily for them. That would hit frequent flyers more. Banning flights where an equivalent 2.5hour train journey exists sounds good, but might the train lines then ramp up the price if there no alternative flight?
- archo 3y agohttps://archive.is/p5gXr https://archive.is/p5gXr
- kyriakos 3y agoPeople living in countries like Cyprus and Malta don't have the luxury of alternative transportation methods so flight prices are not changing. Expect veto.
- snapplebobapple 3y agoThis thread is full of a frustrating amount of poorly thought out convictions (someone actually said they would rather see 10 flights with 1 passenger than 20 flights full per day. Really? Are you totally mental???) None of the environmental people on here are taking into account any benefit from these flights and none of the economics minded people have done a good job explaining why this is a bad idea, so here it goes: The correct answer, as always is to price pollution properly with a carbon tax or cap and trade because then the most efficient providers can kill off the less efficient and provide more per the same unit of pollution. They don't want to do this because that inefficient provider is air france and the air france equivalents and those are sacred cows. A tax or cap and trade would also apply to other inefficient pseudo government sacred cows like state owned energy companies, etc. By putting in a minimum price on a narrow set of polluters they can then target stuff they don't like rather than preferentially hurt the worst offenders (which are often the government!) And they can make us all much poorer by artificially limiting consumer choice (which should never be the goal of pollution regulation. The goal of pollution regulation should be to limit pollution to an acceptable amount while maximizing benefit to consumers and the best, cheapest, easiest way for that to happen is by pricing the pollutant and letting consumers tell us what they want through their purchases at the new price. Its pretty much never achieved by government mandate because government cannot know your personal preferences across all of society.