Government urged to refrain from “unfair” bailouts

Wednesday, April 8, 2020

An open letter directed to governments has been sent from more than 250 organisations from 25 countries is published , urging them to refrain from “unfair” bailouts of the aviation industry on environmental grounds.

Governments are implored to use this moment to embed social and environmental conditions along with enhanced protection for workers and a planned transition towards what the group calls “climate-just mobility”.

The aviation industry has avoided contributing meaningfully to global climate goals and resisted the merest suggestion of taxes on fuel or tickets for decades.

Currently the  airlines, airports and manufacturers are demanding huge and unconditional taxpayer-backed bailouts.

Magdalena Heuwieser from Stay Grounded, a global network of more than 150 organisations said that  they cannot let the aviation industry get away with privatising profits in the good times, and expect the public to pay for its losses in the bad times.

The letter demands that governments should put people first and bail out workers, not shareholders and executives.Transform the transport sector in a climate-friendly way, by cutting air travel demand and strengthening low-carbon alternatives like rail travel, as well as by shifting of employment into decent climate jobs.End aviation “tax exemptions” while putting in place a kerosene tax and fair progressive levies on frequent flying.

According to Stay Grounded  aviation is responsible for five-to-eight per cent of climate heating worldwide.

Tahir Latif from the UK trade union PCS which also represents workers in the aviation sector  said that the collapse of the aviation industry has left workers feeling vulnerable and insecure about their future.

PCS and other trade unions are demanding that financial, labour and health protections are directed to aid workers and  real living basic income to enable workers to see through the crisis has to be prioritised above corporate bailouts.

They demanded public ownership of their transport systems to enable a more humane and coherent response in the case of any similar crisis in the future, and to commence right now the task of planning the just transition of workers to jobs geared toward dealing the impact of transport, particularly aviation, on climate change.

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