Proposed UK frequent flyer tax would make airfares skyrocket

Frequent flyers would be front-line collateral in the war on climate change, under proposals from the UK Climate Change Committee to introduce a “fly more, pay more” levy.

“This is a tax that increases with the number of flights an individual takes,” explains the statutory body, established to advise the government on emissions reductions and chart a course towards aviation net zero by 2050.

In its Seventh Carbon Budget, published last month, the CCC argues that flying is a choice, not a necessity, and so “the cost of decarbonising aviation should be reflected in the cost to fly.”

While a person’s first flight of the year would escape the levy, subsequent trips would attract a tax based on the CO2 emissions of each flight – and this would be an incremental tax that increases with every flight.

Modelling prepared by researchers at the London School of Economics suggests the second trip  within a 12-month period – with each trip being counted as a return flight – could attract £50 per tonne of CO2 emitted.

As a benchmark, a London-Paris return trip in economy on an Airbus A320 is responsible for 0.289 tonnes of CO2, according to the MyClimate.org CO2 Flight Calculator, so if this was your second flight of the year it would see an additional £14.40 charge – not a major impost on an average British Airways fare of £440.

But the more you fly, and the further you fly, the higher this ‘carbon tax’ soars.

That LSE modelling has the third trip of the year seeing the levy double to £100 per tonne, the fourth flight at £150 per tonne, and so on.

Frequent flyers would easily make six to ten trips per year, but even if we peg a mid-point at the fourth trip, that would see £1,320 added to a London-New York business class ticket (for 8.8 tonnes of CO2.)

Headed to Singapore? At 14.1 tonnes of CO2, the fourth-trip levy would add £2,115 to the cost of a business class return fare.

The UK government has no obligation to embrace the advice of the Climate Change Committee, but its broader recommendations are not out of step with other organisations calling for a ‘green tax’ on air travel.

This extends far beyond current ‘green tax’ surcharges such as those of Lufthansa and Swiss vary from €1 to €72, depending on both the length of the flight and what class you’re travelling in.

COP it sweet

At the United Nations COP29 climate change conference in November 2024, a tax on frequent flyers was tabled as one measure to help raise money from developed nations to support developing countries in transitioning to cleaner economies.

The Global Solidarity Levies taskforce – which is backed by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres – advocates “taxation of high-emitting sectors, which has the potential to raise significant amounts of revenue that could be used to fill the climate financing gap.”

Among the taxes outlined in the group’s COP29 Interim Progress Report are a ticket levy “which would be mandatory at a higher rate on luxury tickets (business, first, private)”, along with a “a frequent flying levy with a rate that would progressively increase with the number of flights taken by a passenger each year.”

Under the proposal, frequent flyers would be charged US$9 (AUD$14) on top of their airfare for their second flight within a year.

This surcharge would rise with every additional flight they take, up to US$177 (AUD$274) for their twentieth flight within the same year.

This is estimated to raise US$121 billion per year in financial assistance for developing countries as they move away from a high-emission culture.

The taskforce also suggests “a levy of US$30 on economy seats and US$120 on premium class seats with global coverage on domestic and international flights would raise US$164 billion per year with global coverage on domestic and international flights, and 58 billion per year when applied only to high-income countries and only international flights.”

A European frequent flyer tax?

As previously reported, environmental campaign groups Stay Grounded and the New Economics Foundation (NEF) have also floated the idea of a European ‘frequent flyer tax’ to raise money while discouraging unnecessary flights.

For the first two flights taken in a year there’d be a €50 surcharge for economy class passengers on medium-range flights, although this would be climb to €100 for travellers in business class and first class, as well as anybody on a long-range flight.

For the third and fourth flights, a €50 levy would be added to every plane ticket – with an additional €50 surcharge for medium-range flights, which would double to €100 for first class and business class travellers as well as everyone on long-range flights.

For fifth and sixth flights, the levy would again rise to a baseline of €100 per medium-range flight, plus the additional surcharges.

On the seventh and eighth flights the frequent flyer tax hit €200, before rising to €400 for every flight thereafter.

The rationale is to ensure occasional flights remain affordable for lower income groups, while targeting “excessive pollution” caused by wealthier frequent flyers.

“It doesn’t matter whether you’re flying to visit your family for the first time in years, or taking a tenth annual flight to your luxury house on the coast: you’ll be paying the same tax for that flight,” explains Stay Grounded’s Magdalena Heuwieser.

“A frequent flying levy would be a fair aviation measure, reducing excessive flights for wealthy passengers, while raising revenues – including to expand and provide affordable railways and public transport.”

The report says studies show 52% of respondents in Western Europe don’t fly at all in any given year, while 11% cent of people fly more than three times a year.

These travel habits are heavily skewed towards the wealthy: 35% of households earning over €100,000 take three or more return flights a year, versus just 5% of households earning less than €20,000.