Ryanair condemns increased taxes on air travel

Ryanair has condemned the European Parliament's decision to include aviation in EU emissions trading systems from 2012 onwards. This vote by the European Parliament could add up to €50 per flight to the cost of passenger tickets from 2012 onwards (although even these MEPs don’t know how much the final figure will be), in a measure that will substantially increase taxation on Europe’s consumers.

Speaking yesterday, Ryanair’s Chief Executive Michael O’Leary said:

“Ryanair condemned this additional taxation on an industry which accounts for less than 2% of Europe’s Co2 emissions, as just another vacuous and useless gesture. Taxation does not reduce emissions and will not effect the environment. This extra taxation will be pocketed by every European Government and will reduce the competitiveness of Europe, at a time when no other country or trading block outside Europe is pursuing these environmentally-ineffective and anti-consumer measures.

“It is extraordinary that a bunch of MEPs who swan around between Strasbourg and Brussels, enjoying huge expenses and flight benefits, would vote to increase taxation on Europe’s consumers in a measure which won’t have any effect at all on the environment, but will further damage European airlines at a time when oil is already $140 a barrel.

“These clowns in the European Parliament seem determined to destroy the European airline industry with these discriminatory taxation penalties. When aviation accounts for less than 2% of Europe’s Co2 emissions, and when airlines like Ryanair have invested heavily in new aircraft to reduce our emissions per passenger by 50%, there is no justification for this tax theft by the European Union.

“Aviation is not the cause of, nor the solution to, Co2 emissions or global warming. Increasing taxation on air travel will have no effect on either emissions or global warming; it will just raise the cost of air travel for ordinary European consumers and their families, at a time when the fat cat MEPs will continue to have their flights paid for from their excessive and over-generous expenses. Is it any wonder that European integration is in difficulty, when instead of improving the competitiveness of European air travel, the European Parliament is further raising the tax burden on Europe’s citizens with these totally ineffective but very expensive environmental tax scams."