Euro airport: France increases flight ticket tax

« France hates planes – now it's official ». For example, “Ops Group”, an international organization for Aviatik staff, comments on France's recent tax increases on flight tickets. Michael O'Leary, CEO of the cheap airline Ryanair, threatened with a partial withdrawal from France. And at the French section of the Association of Providers of Business Air Travel, there was talk of a “disaster tax”.

The clammy French state needs money urgently. Now the government has decided to get part of the required foreign currencies at the aircraft passengers. At the euro airport (EAP), however, the shot could backfire.

The solidarity levy, which is due on each ticket on flights or France on each ticket, is more expensive. She has the name of the President in the vernacular, who introduced her in 2006: « Taxe Chirac ». Jacques Chirac wanted to combat diseases in developing countries with the money. The levy increases to 7.40 euros. So far it has been 2.63 euros – almost a tripling. However, this only applies to tickets in Economy Class on line flights within Europe. The serves are much higher on longer flights, as are business and in the first class.

With the code “BSL”, delivery is not due

The French state is the strongest for business flight travelers. In the case of business jets, the solidarity tax increases to up to 2100 euros – per flight and passenger. An increase of 300 percent.

At the euro airport, because of this increase in taxes, there is an effect that the French government hardly had on the radar: the neighboring state could no longer take taxes here, but less. This has to do with the binational status of the airport.

The EAP has two air traffic codes: « BSL » for Basel and « MLH » for Mulhouse. Depending on which code a flight is carried out, the taxes and taxes of the respective country are due. Well, where the tickets under the code MLH are more expensive, providers are likely to flirt to change the site. So offer their flights under Swiss air traffic rights. To do this, they would have to do some effort, but this is possible.

Thanks to Easyjet almost only « Swiss » flights

At the request of the BZ, the euro airport writes: « Although all flights fly on the same airport and the same slope, depending on the applicable traffic law, either French or Swiss law applies and therefore also apply to French or Swiss environmental taxes. »

According to EAP, only those flights that are operated under French traffic rights would also be affected by an increase in French solidarity tax. So that « mlh » is on the tickets of the passengers.

It is already the case today that the code “BSL” is used much more often. This is due to the top dog in Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg, Easyjet. The airline carries out around 60 percent of the flights to the EAP – and has stationed several aircraft on the EAP. They are registered in Switzerland, the staff has Swiss employment contracts and so on.

Change private jets to Basel-Mulhouse?

The Easyjet competitor Wizzair, on the other hand, lists at least a few flights from Basel-Mulhouse under the MLH code. It is quite possible that Wizzair is considering the remaining connections in terms of tax terms due to the price of the time on the French side.

However, the solidarity tax is the most important as described by tickets for business jets. Basel-Mulhouse has a strong position here. The airport is in fifth place within France.

This also has to do with the many providers of interior designs of business aircraft that are based on the EAP, such as Jet Aviation. Now, however, providers of business flight trips from nearby Strasbourg, where many international organizations are based, could also consider moving to Basel-Mulhouse.

France questioned Status

According to this, over 90 percent of flights are already carried out on the EAP under Swiss traffic law. If this proportion continues to increase, this could become a political problem. Because the French authorities have no longer enjoyed the airport's binational status for several years.

The fact that most of the companies are based in the Swiss sector and therefore avoid taxes in the Swiss sector led to years of conflict in the 2010s. After all, after tough negotiations, Bern and Paris agreed on a new tax. The airport was even considered endangered in its current form as a two -state legal structure. Because the airport is on French territory, France is sitting on the longer lever.

An opposite effect of relocating traffic was feared in the course of the planned introduction of a Swiss eco -tax, the so -called CO₂– CHF 30 would have been due on short -haul flights per passenger – flying from the Swiss sector of the EAP would have been distinctive. It would have been expected that a number of providers will switch the code from « BSL » to « MLH » to the Swiss CO₂-tax. But in 2021 the Swiss voting people said no to the total revision of the CO in the referendum vote₂Law.

Money would actually be intended for developing countries

The solidarity tax, with a whole name Taxe de Solidarité sur les Billets d'Avion (TSBA), has already been increased significantly. The government in Paris expects the latest surcharge with additional revenue of more than 800 million euros per year.

Unlike the Swiss CO₂-Tax there is no way in France that the people will tip the increase. Thus, the increase in solidarity tax on Saturday, March 1st, comes into force.