The French Minister of TransportClement Beaune, It is studying limiting private jet flights at a time when efforts are required to limit climate change and energy consumption, and for this measure to be effective and to have more effects, I would like it to be applied at a European level.
“I think we have to act and regulate private jet flights. They are becoming the symbol of a two-speed effort“, explains Beaune in statements published this Sunday by Le Parisien.
His intention is to put this issue to the back from summer vacation when the Executive of Emmanuel Macron discusses the so-called “sobriety plan” that aims to put into practice the energy savings required by the European Union to face the crisis due to the war in Ukraine.
But also to bring this issue up to the next meeting with the other EU transport officials in October, as he estimates that “the most effective thing is to act at a European level to have the same rules and more impact”.
According to the NGO Transport & Environnement, a tenth of the flights in France correspond to private jets. In recent weeks, the accounts on social networks that critically monitor displacements in exclusive planes of millionaires and celebrities.
Le Parisien specifies that the French minister is considering different possibilities, which would range from incitement measures to reduce the use of these flights to a regulation that imposes restrictions, through taxes that have a dissuasive effect.
Among the scenarios is forcing companies to make public their travel by private plane or a device to frame their use and even prevent it when there is a alternative with commercial flights or train.
It would be a way of extending the device that already exists, which prevents airlines from operating internal lines in France when there is an alternative by train with a duration of less than two hours and half, except if they are to establish interconnection flights.
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Another idea would be to integrate the private aviation in the quota system of the future tax on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions that is being designed in the EU.
Behind his plans, there is also the desire not to grow the impression that there are different measuring sticks when demanding the tightening of the belt due to the climate and energy urgency.