Today, the Belgian and Irish governments announced that they plan to introduce from the early months of 2009 a new tax for all the airlines operating to/from Belgium and Ireland.

The new tax called “Collective madness” will be paid by each carrier taking off from any airport in the two mentioned countries, no matter it is a local or a foreign airline. The tax will be paid for each passenger carried on board of the aircraft.

In Ireland there the tax will be introduced starting with 30th March for each passenger that is outbound for another European country. The tax will be 8 euro for a passenger flying to one of the countries very close to Ireland – UK, Iceland, France, Spain and Germany, and 10 euro if he/she is flying to another European destination and the north African countries. For the moment the government have not mentioned if there will be a tax for the intercontinental flights (other than those to north Africa).

The press is expecting a very vehement reaction from low-cost airline Ryanair which is flying from all Irish airports to more than 90 European destinations. In the same time, Ryanair has a base at Bruxelles Charleroi Airport (the secont Bruxelles airport) from were is flying to almost 30 European and north African destinations.

Ryanair is flying to over 90 destinations from Irish airports. The company official are expected to attack the new tax in the next couple of days. (photo source)

In Belgium, the tax can be even higher, and if so it is expected that airlines will cut flights from the four main airports: Bruxelles International, Charleroi, Antwerp and Liege. For the moment, the government did not said how much this tax will be.

A French newspaper said (noting that there is not an official source to be quoted) that the new Belgian tax will be 10 euro for any European outbound flight and 40 euro for all the others.

A person working in the Belgian aviation sector told Boardingmedia.net that he hopes taxes will not be like those imposed last spring by the Dutch government: 11,25 euro per any passenger on an outgoing flight to any European destination and 45 euro for anybody flying to any worldwide airport.

The Belgian tax concern a lot the Dutch travelers too as many of the are using the Bruxelles International airport to fly intercontinental flights and Charleroi to reach European popular destination, as they do not want to pay the high Dutch taxes impose to airlines flying out Amsterdam or Rotterdam airports.

IATA (International Air Transport Association) criticized the Irish and Belgian proposals for the new tax, “Collective madness is the only way to describe the EUR 150 million Irish and EUR 132 million Belgian departure tax proposals. Filling budget gaps or financing government investment in the banking industry with gratuitous travel taxes is policy myopia at its worst,” told Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s Director General and CEO, quoted by Associated Press.