A call for a strike has been launched in air transport for next Thursday. The national union of airline pilots (SNPL) is mobilizing against a increase in taxation on air transport voted by the deputies, he told AFP this Sunday. The ultra-majority union among pilots is also organizing a rally on Thursday in front of the National Assembly.
He was joined at the end of the day on Sunday by several other unions in the sector – UNSA transport, UNSA PNC, CFE-CGC FNEMA, UNAC, SNPNC-FO and FEETS-FO -, who announced in a joint communiqué they called “all employees of the airline sector to come and demonstrate their disagreement with this lethal taxation for jobs before the National Assembly on November 14“.
“Devastating effects”
The deputies, who are examining the draft 2025 budget, effectively approved on Friday the increase in taxation on air transport proposed by the government, however limiting its duration to one year and excluding from the system Overseas and the Corsica. This amendment is supposed to increase air transport taxation by one billion euros with entry into force on January 1, 2025.
Concretely, this device will raise tax rates on airline tickets. For economy class flights, the increase will be from 2.60 euros per passenger to 9.50 euros for a European destination, from 7.50 euros to 15 euros for intermediate destinations, and from 7.50 euros to 40 euros for distant destinations, according to the general rapporteur of the Budget, Charles de Courson.
In a press release published last Thursday, the airline pilots' union called not to cut “the wings of French aviation” and denounced the “devastating effects” of the increase in taxation on air transport. He castigated “a three-fold increase in this tax, without a consultation of stakeholders in the sector having taken place, nor the carrying out of an impact study to analyze the economic and social consequences of this measure”.
For the SNPL, this “additional taxation will ultimately lead to tens of thousands of job losses in France“, while “many players in the aviation sector are only just recovering from the prolonged effects of the Covid-19 crisis period”.
“This social disaster will go hand in hand with the weakening of French operators or operators operating regularly in France vis-à-vis their European and international competitors, with in addition a real risk of a reduction in the economic and tourist attractiveness of our country“, he believes.
