Brussels, 19/05/2005 (Agence Europe) - In a press statement, European airline carriers declared that it was “fundamentally unacceptable to use airline passengers as a source of development funding”. Sylviane Lust, Director General of the International Air Carrier Association (IACA) considers that this involves a “discriminatory practice against passengers who choose to fly” and that “the natural ambiguity of the tax, which will be voluntary in some countries and compulsory in others, will create confusion”. The association explained that requests for flights in Europe are “more and more price sensitive”, particularly for passengers on leisure airlines, “whose holiday constitutes the single biggest purchase of the year”. IACA also highlighted the cost of administering the tax for companies.
Last Saturday EU finance ministers meeting for an informal session of the Ecofin Council in Luxembourg opted for a modest contribution from airline passengers as an additional source of public development aid funding (EUROPE 8948). This source of innovative funding will initially be voluntary for passengers but will become compulsory in a group of countries affected. This was expressed in preference to a kerosene tax, which risked destabilising the air transport sector but its technical and operational modalities still need to be worked out for the next Ecofin Council on 7 June.