Brits flying out of the UK to go on holiday will now face an 'environmental charge' of up to €72 (£61) when travelling with a major airline.
Lufthansa has announced that they are now implementing an 'Environmental Cost Surcharge' on all tickets issued from June 26 2024, with departure dates from January 1 2025 onwards. Individuals travelling out of 27 European Union countries as well as the UK, Norway and Switzerland will need to pay the environmental surcharge intended to cover part of rising costs due to regulatory environmental requirements.
The amount each traveller will be charged will differ depending on the flight route they are taking, with some charges being as low as €1 (£0.85) and the highest charge being €72 (£61). The exact charge will be shown when booking, on the Lufthansa booking pages in the price details.
The environmental surcharge will affect Brits travelling to all major holiday hotspots including Majorca and Ibiza in Spain, Paris in France and Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
The additional charge will also apply to all airlines in the Lufthansa Group including Lufthansa Airlines and Austrian Airlines.
Reuters reported that British carrier easyJet said it wasn't planning to follow Lufthansa's footsteps. "We don't apply legacy carrier surcharges and have no plans to do so," an easyJet spokesperson told Reuters.
Another budget airline, Wizz Air, told Reuters that they would avoid additional surcharges "in order to avoid burdening passengers with higher costs".
For short and medium-haul flights, this would mean that fares will go up by up to €5 (£4.23) in economy and €7 (£5.92) for business class. For long-haul flights, tickets would increase between €18 (£15.23) and €36 (£30.45) for business fares and up to €72 (£61) for first class fares from 2025, Lufthansa told Reuters.
Earlier this month the Mirror reported what a 'flyer tax' could mean to Brits' holidays. The so-called 'flyer tax', if introduced, would mean that flights would become more expensive - but not for all holidaymakers.
Environmental expert, Matt Finch, explained: "A frequent flyer levy is where the amount of tax you pay on a ticket goes up every time you fly in any given time period, probably a year.
"There isn't a frequent fly levy anywhere in the world... But most people suggest that the first flight you take, departing flight that is, would have no tax, the second one would have a relatively low rate, say £10, the third £20, fourth £40, fifth £80 - it either doubles or goes up in large increments," he added.
Lufthansa set itself a target to be carbon neutral by 2050. By 2030, the airline also hops to halve its net carbon emissions compared to 2019.
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