Proposed Danish airport tax threatens decarbonisation

Danish airports threatened with proposed taxes.

ACI EUROPE has urged the Danish Government not to proceed with its plan to introduce a tax on all departing passengers from Danish airports.

With only a residual part of this new tax to be earmarked for the greening of Danish aviation and most of it to be used to fund the welfare system, this initiative will damage the competitive position of Danish airports – and thus hamper their ability to finance their ambitious decarbonisation plans. Danish airports are indeed at the forefront of the industry’s decarbonisation efforts, with Aarhus, Billund, Copenhagen and Roskilde airports all aiming to achieve net zero for CO2 emissions under their control already by 2030.

Olivier Jankovec, Director General of ACI EUROPE, said: “This proposed tax is truly ill-advised and essentially amounts to political green washing more than anything else. Rather than helping airports and aviation to decarbonise, it will actually have the opposite effect by diverting much-needed financial resources away from the sector. The EU has already put in place through the Fit for 55 package an ambitious regulatory framework to decarbonise its aviation sector through tightening its Emission Trading Scheme and mandates for deploying Sustainable Aviation Fuels. Along with other measures, this will require additional investments from the whole aviation ecosystem to the tune of €820 billion by 2050. So clearly, new taxes are the very last thing we need. If anything, more financial support is what is required.”

He added: “This tax will also risk hurting the connectivity of Denmark and its economy. Denmark’s air connectivity this year remains -10% below where it was before the COVID-19 stuck, so clearly adding costs to air travel is not going to facilitate further progress in fully recovering and further developing that connectivity.”