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France calls for minimum price on European flights (techxplore.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/europe@feddit.de
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[โ€“] 20 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Oh nice

Instead of trying to lower prices for alternatives (e.g. trains), they just try to jack up prices for existing forms of transport, so that the other transports now seem cheaper. How about taxing the shit out of airlines and using that to get trains down to the price of what airlines charge now?

This is just again getting the mid- and low-income layers to pay for shit.

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  • [โ€“] 13 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    "I openly call for taxing polluting activities to invest in the ecological transition," said Beaune, adding that the government plans to increase the tax on flights departing France to fund rail investments.

    I don't think it's entirely clear what he wants the EU to do, but it really seems like making other forms of transport cheaper is part the goal here.

    Hence I think it's likely going to be a reasonable proposal. Making flights more expensive to pay for cheaper trains is a good way to go about it. The money for the trains to come from somewhere and flights are something people can live without.

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  • [โ€“] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Yes, if it is done in the right order. Make trains cheaper first, then add to the cost of airlines. Knowing politics it will be "We will now tax flights with an additonal X% and use that for alternative travels". Then, 10 years later, the "alternative travels" will be the same price but flying will be more expensive. I just do not trust politics anymore at all if they do not put the "lowering costs" part first.

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  • [โ€“] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    Make trains cheaper first, then add to the cost of airlines.

    Then you have a gap regarding financing. I.e. also a problem. Hence I really don't care about the order here. Both trains becoming cheaper and plains becoming more expensive are things that need to happen asap. I would prefer both to happen tomorrow, but if one happens later or not all all that's still better than nothing happening.

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  • [โ€“] 0 points 2 years ago

    Yes, and that gap in financing will make them haul their asses. As they now have to get the money and have already given the benefit out. And for the meantime, they can probably scrape together money from a few other places. Maybe a road will get delayed for a year or something.

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  • [โ€“] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Who do you think they will pass on those costs? Basically all Airlines make their money on normal tickets and not on the class 1 tickets. What you really want are instead of 0% tax on Airplaine fuel, ridiculous taxes. That actually increases the COSTS of airlines and those do get passed on more to the rich as they travel a lot more inefficiently. They also can't evade costs, but they can taxes.

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  • [โ€“] 4 points 2 years ago

    You might be misunderstanding my comment: They can increase costs if they want, but they should take the costs away elsewhere. I have no problem with a train ticket being 10โ‚ฌ and a plane ticket being 120โ‚ฌ instead of the other way around.

    But this will lead to a plane ticket being (as an example) 80โ‚ฌ and the train ticket continuing to be 120โ‚ฌ. While they do make more money off of 1st class and stuff, they still need to make a chunk of the cost off of 2nd class. Especially on more local (e.g. inside the country or just one over), where there often is just one class in the plane (And maybe there is business).

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