The French government has announced a reduction in the rate of eco tax charged on plane tickets for certain high-priority routes.
The French government has announced a lowering of the rate of eco tax charged on certain French flights, effective from June 1st.
The tax for a standard class journey will fall from €7.40 to €2.63 on 26 routes including Brive-Paris, Limoges-Paris and La Rochelle-Lyon.
The routes are almost all domestic, with the exception of a couple of international connections to Strasbourg, and include most of the links between the French island of Corsica and the mainland.
These routes have a special status as ‘public service’ routes because they are in areas where other transport options are limited, or where flying represents the only fast connections.
The eco tax – known as the tarif de solidarité de la taxe sur le transport aérien de passagers or TSBA – was originally added to plane tickets under Jacques Chirac’s government in 2005 but was doubled in 2024, a decision which the budget airline Ryanair has blamed for its withdrawal from some regional French airports.
The tax is added as an extra fee to each plane ticket bought, charged at a sliding rate depending on the length of the flight and whether the ticket is standard class, business or first.
READ ALSO: What is France’s airline ‘eco tax’ and how does it affect ticket prices?✎
The full list if flights to benefit from the reduced tax rate;
- Aurillac-Paris
- Brive-Paris
- Le Puy-Paris
- Castres-Paris
- Rodez-Paris
- Limoges-Paris
- Tarbes-Paris
- Brest-Ouessant
- Limoges-Lyon
- La Rochelle-Lyon
- Poitiers-Lyon
- Strasbourg-Madrid
- Strasbourg-Munich
- Strasbourg-Copenhagen
- Ajaccio-Paris (Orly)
- Bastia-Paris (Orly)
- Calvi-Paris (Orly)
- Figari-Paris (Orly)
- Bastia-Marseille
- Bastia-Nice
- Calvi-Marseille
- Calvi-Nice
- Ajaccio-Marseille
- Ajaccio-Nice
- Figari-Marseille
- Figari-Nice.
