Brazil - Airport fees

http://www.opovo.com.br/app/opovo/economia/2011/02/01/noticiaeconomiajornal,2096512/taxa-de-embarque-em-fortaleza-segue-entre-as-mais-caras.shtml

If you look at the table, you can see the range of fees, normally included in your ticket prices, for the nation's airports. The article was in a Fortaleza paper, hence the focus on that airport.

Thus our airports may not be good, but we make up for that by making them expensive.

Thus our airports may not be good, but we make up for that by making them expensive.

Just to put BR airport fees into prespective:

If I were fortunate enough to be escaping the dark days of the UK for Brasil, I'd have to pay £23 (BRL62) to Heathrow airport in passenger charges, and a further £75 (BRL202) to the UK government (Air Passenger Duty - APD). And that's in economy - the business or first-class passnger pay BRL405 APD.

At least the tax in Brasil goes towards airport development: here there tax goes directly to the exchequer for he government to spend as it wishes.

PS In case theose numbers look small in Reais, blame the exchange rate - now down to 2.7 :(

Just to put BR airport fees into prespective:

If I were fortunate enough to be escaping the dark days of the UK for Brasil, I'd have to pay £23 (BRL62) to Heathrow airport in passenger charges, and a further £75 (BRL202) to the UK government (Air Passenger Duty - APD). And that's in economy - the business or first-class passnger pay BRL405 APD.

At least the tax in Brasil goes towards airport development: here there tax goes directly to the exchequer for he government to spend as it wishes.

PS In case theose numbers look small in Reais, blame the exchange rate - now down to 2.7 :(

That does indeed put our situation in perspective. However, Heathrow also works. Many, including me, complain about it but given the situation it does a quite good job. Even T5 is decent now that they found out how to route luggage and passengers. There are also a plethora of hotels, some good, in the airport or within minutes of it. One must pay for Hotel Hoppa or stay in the Hilton, but that still is not bad at all. (this is a memorable post for me. I have said nothing good about LHR since I lived in London many years ago)

Those cannot be said about any Brazilian airport. Paying is OK if the services work, whether the funds go to the airport or not.

Most passengers may not even know what they're paying in airport fees because those are so often included in the price of their plane tickets. I remember having to go to a counter to pay the fees in many places, including Rio (though haven't had to do that there recently), La Paz and Maputo (where fees were taken in U.S. dollars, and a stern-faced clerk carefully looked over, and then refused to accept, the 20 dollar bill my mother was using to pay). I don't think I've ever paid the fee separately in the U.S.

I wish some of the fees were used to buy comfortable chairs in the departure lounges in Brazil's airports, which are not alone in being uncomfortable. We flew out of the "new" Bangkok airport about 4 years ago and were amazed at the hard metal seats near the departure gates. Ouch.

Airport fees in the UK and France have an ideological component, the so-called "International Solidarity Tax", a.k.a. "Punitive Departure Tax". They are not entirely destined to fund airport operations; it is difficult to compare them with their Brazilian counterparts.
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By the way, the creation of this "International Solidarity Tax" was in response to a campaign from our beloved ex-leader, Lula; it was one of his first moments of "never before in the history of this country (world?)" . . .
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In Brazil these airport fees go into the federal government general fund: they are not earmarked specifically for airport operations; any funds for them must be appropriated by Congress during budgeting. They have been spiked some years ago in a vain attempt to curb the flow of Brazilians traveling overseas immediately before one of the periodic foreign currency crisis that we had in the past.

So, it is not that they are expensive and the airports do not work. They have nothing to do with the working of the airports . . .

Airport fees in the UK and France have an ideological component, the so-called "International Solidarity Tax", a.k.a. "Punitive Departure Tax". They are not entirely destined to fund airport operations; it is difficult to compare them with their Brazilian counterparts.


I take your point about taxes in Brasil being hypothecated to air transport infrastructure, while in France and UK they are not. However I think France maintains a small airport infrastructure levy, and I take exception to your suggestion that the UK government is involved in any form of altruism in its gathering of air-transport related taxation :D The government is far too cynical to engage in such things! The taxes the UK raises from this source go to fund the armed forces, build hospitals and pay (eventually) my state pension, etc

The only passenger-related tax in the UK is Air Passenger Duty. The proceeds go directly to the exchequer. It is a purely oportunistic tax on air transport, and not hypothecated to poverty relief, airport improvement or anything else.

It adds adds USD120 to your ticket if flying in economy to Brasil: twice that if travelling in more comfort. On top of that, ticket prices include the more usual airport charges and fuel surcharges etc

A crucial difference between airport funding in France/UK and Brasil is that (in general) the French/UK airports are sustained by their owner/operators and the revenues they generate, while in Brasil I believe there is an element of state (federal) funding and subsidy benefitting Infraero, and a large measure of airport cross-subsidisation among that organisation's airports.

Ian-UK, thanks for correcting me; I was quoting from memory (in the case of France) and in the wrong belief regarding to the UK.

In Brazil, airport fees were vastly increased in 1998 (for international flights only) in an attempt to curb traveling and expenses by Brazilians abroad (at the time, exchange rates between the real and other currencies are "administered" by government, they were not floating rates to be determined by market forces). This happened between the Asian and the Russian currency crisis of the late 90s (someone still remember those days?)

Later on, Lula (I don't know if the idea was originally his, I first heard of it from him) proposed that "Solidarity Tax", began campaigning for it; until Pres. Chirac, of France, instituted it, to the immense happiness of all frenchmen and french-loving visitors.

(One of the problems is, even if these taxes were fair, we still don't know if they are being used as intended, as almost no one knows about they.)

Ian-UK, an additional problem in Brazil is that Infraero (the airport operator), besides being inefficient, is a state agency and, as such, it does not keep any revenues to itself: all taxes we pay goes to the general government fund, Infraero funding is done via the budget, voted by Congress. They don't have any incentive to efficiency, not even to increase revenue, as they will receive an agreed lump sum each year.

To them, each additional passenger is an additional burden. With this kind of structure, how could their services be different than that we experience?

That is just why the promised reforms, including the proposed privatization of some airports, may (if we are very lucky) reform the funding side of Infraero. Since it is to be "civilianized" and moved out from military control now is an excellent time to institute some reform.

I think it will happen, probably not perfectly, but still far better than it is now.