Airline tax will buy medicine for world's poor

[tocqueville]

By Irwin Arieff
26 minutes ago

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Four governments, the United Nations and the world's soccer federation launched a plan on Friday to use the proceeds of a new airline ticket tax to treat people in the developing world suffering from AIDS, malaria or tuberculosis.

Officials of Brazil, Chile, France, Norway, the United Nations and FIFA -- the Federation Internationale de Football Association -- unveiled the International Drug Purchase Facility on the sidelines of a U.N. conference that is discussing strategies against the AIDS pandemic.

"This is a wonderful day for the poor and the sick," said U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan "It is going to help millions of people around the world."

The ticket tax is being pushed hard by French President Jacques Chirac and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Several other countries have signaled an intention to join the scheme.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060602/wl_nm/airlines_development_un_dc_1

[MercutioATC]

1. Maybe they should use it to fund needed aviation improvements instead.

Their air traffic control system is underfunded and has to be bailed out bu the government periodically...seems to me, they'd be better off using ticket taxes to pay for aviation.

[tocqueville]

2. do you mean that Air France and SAS traffic control is "underfunded" ?

... that's news to me. They use the 4 main systems ATC (Air Traffic Control), ATFM (Air Traffic Flow Management),
CFMU (Central Flow Management Unit) and ASM (Air Space Management).

The overall objective of the European ATM network is:

For all phases of flight, to enable the safe, economic, expeditious and orderly flow of traffic through the provision of ATM services which are adaptable and scaleable to the requirements of all users and areas of European airspace. The services shall meet demand in a cost-effective way, be globally inter-operable, operate to uniform principles, be environmentally sustainable and satisfy national security requirements.

In the coming years, European ATM will need to accommodate twice as many flights as today and, therefore, simultaneously generate extra capacity to meet the traffic demand, increase safety levels and contribute to the environment, in a cost-effective way.

Best use of airspace will be achieved because the traditional Air Traffic Control (ATC) concept will be replaced … by a new ATM concept implying a structural revision of the ATM processes. Organisational means to manage the ATM network … will be introduced, also capitalising on newly emerging technologies and fully utilising, where possible, the co-operative capabilities of both air and ground systems. This will allow … a redistribution of some tasks between the ground and airborne ATM systems.

http://www.eurocontrol.int/corporate/public/subsite_homepage/index.html

today they deal with 30 000 flights a day.

It's possible that Chile's and Brasil's need improvements on minor airports but hardly on the biggest destinations. Besides they will be more a recipient of the collected money. And the UN and the FIFA aren't "countries" with responsability for funding air control either...

[MercutioATC]

3. I should have specified...the air traffic system in general...not just ATC

They're looking at over $100B in needed improvements over the next 10 years.

http://www.aoa.org.uk/publications/Airportoperator_news_items.asp?nid=191