Part of the airline sector is on strike this Thursday. At the initiative of the unions, a few hundred striking pilots and employees of the airline sector demonstrated in Paris on Thursday, without major consequences on traffic, to express their opposition to the increase in taxation on their sector, carried out by the government .
In the calm, caps on their heads and in navy blue outfits on the Esplanade des Invalides, dozens of pilots displayed a red “pilot on strike” sticker, twelve years after the last national strike of the profession, according to the powerful National Union airline pilots (SNPL), at the origin of the call.
The only disruptions resulting from the social movement concerned four Transavia flights on Thursday morning, with the other carriers reporting a normal situation.
The unions mobilized alongside the SNPL – UNSA transport, UNSA PNC, CFE-CGC FNEMA, UNAC, SNPNC-FO and FEETS-FO – blamed a measure in the 2025 finance bill, supposedly increase air transport taxation by one billion euros, examined in the Senate at the end of the month.
“We are here to fight against this billion euros in taxes which will suffocate air transport and in turn threaten jobs in the sector,” warned Karine Gély, president of the SNPL.
No “robust impact study”
The unions argue that no “solid impact study” was carried out by the Ministry of Transport before “tripling” the solidarity tax on plane tickets (TSBA), also called the Chirac tax. The increase could range from 2.60 euros per passenger to 40 euros, depending on the class and destination, according to the general budget rapporteur Charles de Courson. Stéphane Salmon, president of the SNPNC-FO, fears that this tax will serve as a “pretext” for airlines not to increase salaries or improve the working conditions of cabin crew.
“We are in an extremely competitive environment, with unfair social competition coming from Gulf countries and low-cost companies from Eastern Europe. There are not many levers left for the companies, so efforts will be made on staff,” he anticipates. In addition to employment, unions fear the effects of the tax on the sector's decarbonization effort.
“The government is trying to give an environmental side to this tax. But this is completely false. We will prevent airlines from investing in new fleets of less polluting aircraft and from adopting sustainable fuels (SAF), five to six times more expensive than kerosene,” judges the SNPL. “The calculation is very bad,” summarizes its spokesperson, Thierry Oriol.
