Polish passengers will not like this. Work on the aviation tax is underway
Flying from Poland may soon become more expensive? The government plans to introduce a tax that will affect the prices of tickets offered by airlines.
The Ministry of Infrastructure is preparing a real revolution in Polish aviation. According to the economic portal wnp.pl, the first change will be the liquidation of the Civil Aviation Office, in its place the Polish Civil Aviation Agency. The new institution is to be maintained not from state funds, but from revenues from air travel. Each passenger departing from Poland would have to pay PLN 6 in tax, and each transfer within our country would have to pay PLN 3.
Poles will pay such taxes
Each passenger who starts his flight in Poland will pay PLN 3 to PLN 6. The fees are an integral part of the new project of the Ministry of Infrastructure, which assumes the creation of a new entity, the Polish Civil Aviation Agency (in place of the currently existing Civil Aviation Office). Thanks to taxes that have not yet been approved, the newly established institution would gain up to PLN 150 million annually, which would enable it to be financed. According to wnp.pl, the problem of the Civil Aviation Office for years has been the lack of an appropriate number of specialists who are looking for better employment conditions in the industry. “ULC has been underinvested for many years. This is said both by those working in the office and by carriers and airports who in many cases depend on the decisions of these officials,” we read.
A big problem for airlines
Airlines are the most dissatisfied with the planned changes. Increasing the fees that are to be added to ticket prices may result in the cancellation of connections and even the departure of carriers from Poland. “Taxing airlines, and consequently passengers, always brings bad results. We have examples from Germany, we have examples from Sweden. And it does not matter whether these are funds that are later intended for environmental protection or for purposes related to the functioning of the industry. Collecting such taxes is bad for aviation in a given country, because the result is that airlines limit the number of connections to a given country,” says Tomasz Kloskowski, president of Gdańsk Airport, quoted by wnp.pl. Poles will have to wait for any changes. Aviation reform would be carried out by the end of the government’s term.
