France seeks end to cut-price air fares to fight environmental dumping

France is aiming to impose a minimum price for plane tickets to protect the environment. Transport Minister Clement Beaune said he would present a proposal to the European Union in the coming days.

Low-cost airlines often price tickets at a loss, making air travel less expensive than taking the train. © Armando Franca/AP

“Ten euro plane tickets while we are in an ecological transition are not acceptable,” Beaune said in an interview with L’Obs weekly magazine. He was referring to loss leader pricing from low-cost airlines that offers tickets that do not cover the real cost of air travel.

Beaune wants the European Union to impose a minimum ticket price to "fight against social and environmental dumping”, with the goal of getting plane tickets in line with the cost of train tickets.

“I completely stand by taxing polluting activities in order to invest in the ecological transition,” he said.

Costly trains

A report by Greenpeace in July showed the environmental impact of trains was “100 times less” than plane travel in France, but train tickets remain much more expensive.

Beaune did not elaborate on what the minimum plane ticket price should be, nor how the rule should be applied.

The announcement was welcomed by the president of the National Federation of Transport User Associations, Bruno Gazeau, who told FranceInfo that financial aid, in the form of subsidies or tax breaks, should “not make planes systematically less expensive than the train”.

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Tony Renucci, of the air quality advocacy group Respire, told France Info a minimum cost of plane tickets was a step in the right direction, but it was unclear how it would encourage alternatives.

"If you want people to take the train rather than the plane, you must lower the cost of train tickets,” he said, adding that cars were still more polluting than air travel, producing 53 percent of nitrogen oxide emissions.

Earlier in August Beaune announced a “reinforcement” of taxes on plane tickets in the 2024 budget, along with increased taxes on highway companies.