The government “does not confirm” the abandonment of an additional tax on plane tickets, the Ministries of Economy and Transport said Tuesday evening, reacting to information published in Les Echos. “The government has given up” on this project, which was to “finance the development of the railway”, because “the executive judges that the” air sector “will already be put to contribution by the tax on airport concessions”, write Les Echos.

“Bercy, which has never confirmed a tax on plane tickets, does not confirm the abandonment of a tax on plane tickets,” declared a spokesperson for the Ministry of the Economy. “I am not confirming anything,” avoided a spokesperson for the Ministry of Transport. According to Les Echos, “the latest decisions around the finance bill for 2024 have suddenly sounded the alarm for this system” on plane tickets. “We had to avoid the double penalty with regard to the airline sector,” said to the newspaper “a person close to the matter”, while “Bercy has been concocting in parallel since this summer another tax offensive which must fall on French air transport” .

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Les Echos notes that “the criteria retained for the moment by Bercy would amount to targeting the four main regional platforms (the airports of Lyon, Marseille, Nice and Toulouse), as well as the Parisian airports of ADP”. “The executive expects that the tax” on airports “will then be passed on to airlines,” adds the newspaper.