The Dutch cabinet has approved a tax on airline tickets, to start in 2021, and has sent it to the Council of State for approval. The charge would be €7 per ticket, and would also involve a tax on cargo planes that don't meet environmental standards.
It's the second time around for a passenger tax in the Netherlands, which tried it in 2008, with a tax of €11.25 on short flights and €45 on longer ones. It was repealed after a few months; its main effect was not to push people to 'greener' transport but to get them to cross the border to cheaper flights from Germany. Other European countries have also had on-and-off experiments with passenger taxes, with similar results, and a serious burden for lower-income families.
The new Dutch proposal is in place of one that would have charged €3.80 for European flights and €for transcontinental flights; the cabinet decided it would be too complicated. Officials said that if a Europe-wide tax were adopted, the Dutch tax would be dropped.
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