Spain's airlines rail against proposed short-haul, frequent traveller taxes

Spain’s airlines decried on Thursday PM Pedro Sanchez’s proposal to impose new taxes on air travel in a bid to limit the sector’s damage on the environment and align its taxes with those on other forms of transport. The new measures could include a tax on frequent travellers and short-haul flights, as well as the possible prohibition of plane journeys for routes which could be covered in less than 2-1/2 hours by train. “We outright reject a tax on tickets and the elimination of flights shorter than 2.5 hours,” a spokeswoman for the Spanish branch of global airline association ALA said. “The first measure will devastate tourism, this country’s principal motor of growth ... and the second will displace connecting flights to third countries, while only marginally reducing carbon emissions.” Airline representatives gathered at the FITUR international tourism trade fair in Madrid expressed similar discontent at what they deemed the “demonisation” of their industry and the travel sector, hard-hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. “Covertly conditioning E14b in European recovery funds to the imposition of new taxes on aviation doesn’t just penalise the sector, but also the consumer,” said Jose Bauza Diaz, coordinator of the European Parliament’s transport and tourism commission.<br/>