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Comment by hguant | Hacker News Reader

This is due to an international agreement post world war two (the 1944 Chicago Convention on Aviation) that agreed that fuel and maintenance parts necessary for _international air travel_ would be exempt from tarrifs and all taxes, barring a specific agreement between those to nations.

Domestic use is taxed, and at rather steep rates (look at the US!); however, because most flights in the EU are international, it would require both nations ok'ing a tax on flights between them. No one has gone through with this, and it's doubtful any one ever will, for a variety of reasons.

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I'm surprised that the EU hasn't passed a directive to set a tax rate for aviation fuel for flights between EU countries.

I guess planes might just fill up their tanks in non EU countries and then carry the extra load around and be more polluting.

But that's exactly what hguant explains. Flights between EU countries are international flights and are therefore tax exempt under the Chicago Convention.

> barring a specific agreement between those two nations.

If every country in the EU agreed that every other country in the EU could impose tariffs on flights between them, then this should work.

hguant also pointed out:

>barring a specific agreement between those to nations

An EU wide agreement would be an agreement between nations.

All that does is neuter domestic airline hubs and give more money to the Gulf (Emirates, Etihad, ...) or America-based airlines, which is neither good for the economy nor for the environment.

Yeah. A global tax would solve it.

What about a really complicated solution, since a global solution is not going to happen:

1. Tax local fuel in EU. Everyone who fuels in European airports, must pay more

2. Tax European airliners fueling abroad - in countries that are not in the EU airline fuel tax agreement.

3. Tax inbound airliners according to the amount of fuel onboard

This would probably violate all sorts of treaties, would be hard to enforce and would have lots of all kinds of leaks... but food for thought anyway.

How would that work? Would people fly from Paris to Berlin via Dubai rather than take the train?

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