Airline Finance News.

An air levy is set to be imposed by Brazil, Britain, Chile, Congo, Cyprus, France, Ivory Coast, Jordan, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Mauritius, Nicaragua, and Norway to raise money from tickets to help the poor and countries decimated by AIDS. Another 25 countries including Germany, Belgium, Austria, South Africa, South Korea and Mexico are also expected to adopt the levy. The idea meets a proposal by President Jacques Chirac to impose a levy of one euro on tickets to help spread the benefits of globalization to people living on less than a euro a day. IATA has opposed the levy. Mar 5, 2006

IATA DG and CEO Giovanni Bisignani yesterday urged governments to reject a proposal by French President Jacques Chirac to place a tax on aviation to fund Third World development. Chirac repeated his suggestion at the opening of the Ministerial Conference on Innovative Taxation to Fund Development in Paris. Bisignani had sharp words for UN Secretary General Kofi Anan, calling his support for the tax "particularly short-sighted and disappointing" and claiming that it "ignores the policies of [ICAO]--a UN agency--that seeks to eliminate taxes on the sale of air transport." Mar 1, 2006