Austria's Transport Minister Leonore Gewessler (Greens) announced the introduction of a 30 Euro air tax on short-haul flights up to a maximum of 350 kilometers away. At first glance, this would make many feeder connections massively more expensive, but according to a university professor at the Johannes Kepler University Linz these are not affected at all.
The point-to-point volume on connections such as Graz-Vienna, Klagenfurt-Vienna or Salzburg-Vienna has always been extremely manageable. The vast majority of passengers on ultra-short routes are transferring passengers. Point-to-point, for example, Graz-Vienna is rarely booked.
The planned law provides that the flight tax is 12 euros per passenger. Deviating from this, 30 euros are due if “the distance between the domestic airport from which the departure takes place and the destination airport is less than 350 km. The stated distance is determined using the great circle distance method. "
The legal expert from the Johannes Kepler University in Linz expressly points out that the definition of the term "destination airport" in Section 2 Paragraph 5 of the Flight Tax Act has not been changed at all and therefore remains unchanged. The wording of the legislator is as follows: "Destination airport is the domestic or foreign location where the passenger's flight is scheduled to end. The airport at which a stopover is made is not considered a destination airport. A stopover is the interruption of the passenger's flight for less than 24 hours if the interruption is followed by a departure to an airport other than the airports of the previous departures. The destination airport does not have to be different from the airport of departure (sightseeing flight)."
The law professor concludes: "This means that the end point of the journey is the destination airport, and if this entire journey is more than 350 km, it will remain at 12 euros anyway (which is where the effect of the present amendment seems to end)."
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