Frequent Flyer Tax Could Raise Billions for Climate
- Media Manager
- May 8, 2023
- 1 min read
Microsoft Start: Kiplinger
Written By: Kelley R. Taylor
Published: May 9th, 2023
Frequent flyers contribute more carbon pollution than other people on the planet. That’s a takeaway from researcher Sola Zheng, who focuses on the environmental impacts of commercial aviation. In a piece written for TIME magazine, Zheng points out that frequent flyers (i.e., people who took more than six flights in 2019) “flew more than 98% of the world population.”
That air travel — Zheng and some climate scientists argue — presents an opportunity for people who log many more air miles than others to help lower carbon emissions by paying a mandatory tax.
Taxing frequent flyers to combat climate change isn’t a new idea. For years, data have shown that a small percentage of travelers take a large proportion of flights. For example, a 2021 UK climate action report found that:
In the U.S., 12% of people took 66% of the flights, while in France, just 2% of the population took 50% of the flights.
Similar data applied to travelers in other countries including Canada, China, the Netherlands, the UK, and India, according to the study.
Since frequent flyers take most of the flights, the logic is that they are partly responsible for increasing CO2 aviation emissions that contribute to global warming. And, because data show that frequent flyers tend to have higher incomes, the argument from some is that those travelers should (and can afford to) pay a mandatory “frequent flyer tax.” Revenues from that tax would be used to help combat aviation-related global pollution.
