1. Home
  2. TRID
  3. View Record
https://www.ntro.org.au/

Effects of an Aviation Tax on Aviation in the Netherlands

Introduction The Dutch government agreement "Confidence in the future" for the period 2017-2021 states that the government will make efforts to come to an European agreement on taxes on aviation. The Cabinet also wants to see whether a tax on noisy and polluting aircraft is possible. If both routes do not deliver enough, the government intends to introduce a tax on airline tickets by 2021. In preparation for the decision-making on this topic, the Ministry of Finance has started a project to study the effects of these different variants and to evaluate these by means of a social cost-benefit analysis (SCBA). For this it is necessary to quantitatively determine the effects of a flight tax on air traffic. Significance has calculated these effects on behalf of the Ministry of Finance using the AEOLUS model. The study examined the effects on the number of air passengers, the amount of air freight, the number of flight movements, the amount of noise, the emissions during the LTO-phase and the worldwide CO₂-emission of aviation for 2021 and 2030. In this paper the methods used in the calculations and the results will be presented. The AEOLUS model For the calculation of the effects the AEOLUS model has been used. AEOLUS is a simulation model that forecasts the number of passengers and aircraft movements at Dutch airports for different future scenarios until 2050. The model takes into account restrictions on airports like annual capacities, runway capacities and noise limits. In addition the model can calculate the impacts of several policy measures. The heart of the model is a nested logit model with three levels: main mode choice, route choice (combination of airport, alliance and direct/indirect) and access choice to model the traveler choice. Travel alternatives are generated for all combinations of origins and destinations separately and all choices are simulated. The dimensions are: • 2 travel purposes (business/other) • 2 x 2 types of passengers (Dutch/foreign and OD/transfer) • 56 zones (27 in the Netherlands, 17 in Europe, 12 in the rest of the world) • 5 groups of airlines / alliances • Approx. 40 aircraft types • 4 periods of the day. In most scenarios a substantial growth of air traffic is predicted. The resulting numbers of aircraft movements often exceed capacity. In these cases an iterative procedure is started that affects passenger and airline choices. Results The impact of the air passenger tax strongly depends on whether or not the Dutch airports are constraint at the moment of evaluation. For Amsterdam airport Schiphol, by far the largest airport of the country, this will be the case in 2021 in both economic scenarios and in the high economic scenario in 2030. When the air passenger tax is not to high, the number of flights at that airport remains roughly the same, but there may be a shift from OD passengers to transfer passengers and freight (depending on airline pricing strategies and rules on slot trading). In 2021 there are the following main effects of an air passenger tax (high economic scenario): • Of all Dutch travelers, between 0.6% and 3.2% change their behavior. Of these, around a third decide to leave via a foreign airport, almost half to travel by car or train to the final destination and less than a tenth not to travel at all. • The number of OD passengers at Schiphol decreases by between 0.3 and 1.6 million per year (0.7% -3.5%). The number of transfer passengers is growing by an average of 0.6 million per year (2.3%). • The effects on noise (number of households within a specific noise contour), local LTO-emissions and worldwide CO₂-emissions are limited. In 2021 the effects are very similar in the high and the low scenario. By 2030 in the high economic scenario, the effects will generally be stronger than in 2021, with the exception of the effects on the number of households within the noise contour. In 2030 in the low economic scenario, the authors are dealing with a situation that is comparable to a situation without restrictions. The air passenger tax then immediately leads to a decrease in the number of passengers (both OD and transfer) and the number of flights, and thus also in the amount of noise, LTO- and CO₂-emissions.

Language

  • English

Media Info

  • Media Type: Digital/other
  • Pagination: 21p
  • Monograph Title: European Transport Conference 2019

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01749329
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Files: TRIS
  • Created Date: Aug 27 2020 11:08AM