Ryanair punishes Denmark over ‘harmful’ new tax by scrapping flights to major airports
Ryanair says the tax will make Denmark’s regional airports “hopelessly uncompetitive” in comparison with different EU international locations.
Ryanair has introduced it’s axing all flights to and from Aalborg Airport in Denmark from the tip of March. It means the nation will lose 1.7 million seats and 32 routes for the summer season, the price range airline mentioned.
Ryanair has additionally confirmed it’ll shut its base at Billund, one other vacation spot in Denmark, the place it has two plane.
The price range service flies to each Aalborg and Billund, the latter the house of Legoland, from London Stansted airport. It operates direct routes to Billund from Edinburgh and Manchester, too.
The transfer comes “in response to the [Danish] authorities’s short-sighted determination to introduce an aviation tax of as much as DKK 50 [€6.70] per departing passenger from Jan 2025, coupled with Billund’s failure to agree a aggressive long-term settlement”, the airline mentioned in a press launch.
Denmark has ‘bizarrely’ launched an aviation tax
Ryanair has blamed its exit from the Danish airports on the federal government having “bizarrely launched an aviation tax”.
The airline says this may injury Denmark’s connectivity, tourism jobs and economic system by making the nation and its regional airports “hopelessly uncompetitive” in comparison with different EU international locations.
It cites international locations together with Sweden, Italy, and Hungary which might be as a substitute abolishing their aviation taxes to stimulate site visitors restoration and progress.
What are aviation taxes and what are they used for?
Denmark’s new air passenger tax shall be a charge that travellers can pay along with different taxes when reserving a flight.
Governments add them to encourage flyers to think about the environmental impression of their journey selections and discourage pointless air journey.
Nonetheless, as amassing these taxes is the accountability of airways, who cost them to prospects as a part of their ticket, some carriers are involved about pushing aside passengers, therefore why Ryanair has known as Denmark’s tax “anti-growth”.
However environmental campaigners say that air passenger responsibility taxes might go a lot additional todiscourage flying.
Hannah Lawrence at Keep Grounded, a community to counter aviation, advised Euronews, “Measures to cease the expansion of air site visitors are precisely what we’d like.”
“We have to see efficient insurance policies applied throughout Europe that pretty cut back air site visitors, such because the implementation of a Frequent Flying Levy. [This] would scale back emissions by decreasing extreme flights for rich passengers.”
