Effective July 1st, Portugal has introduced a new tax directed at business aviation. If you are operating an aircraft with 19 seats or less, you’ll have to pay the hefty new tax – a G650 operating Lisbon-Newark will get a bill for around €2,000 (US$2,200).

It’s billed as a “Carbon Tax” – ostensibly to mirror the same regulation that has applied since 2021 to airline passengers. However, an airline operating the same route with 250 passengers will only pay €500, despite having a fuel burn three times higher.

As such, it’s better labeled as a Punishment Tax for business aviation.

 

Tech stops in the Azores are included

If you are planning a tech stop in the Azores (LPLA/Lajes or LPAZ/Santa Maria, for example) – think again. The Azores is “Portuguese Territory” and so covered by the new tax, and the exemption for “technical reasons” doesn’t mean tech stops. So, if you divert in with a fire warning, no tax. If LPAZ or LPLA is your destination, however, you can add about $2,000 USD to your invoice.

You might want to find another NAT tech-stop.

 

How to calculate your bill

The official regulation is here (Artigo 184.º) – in Portuguese. The basics are:

1. From July 2023, a carbon tax is introduced for “consumers of air travel on aircraft with a maximum capacity of up to 19 seats” ,
2. The amount to pay is calculated as: € (TC x CP x L x (D + 1)). TC is the Carbon Tax (€2), CP is a Coefficient of Pollution (10x), L is the number of seats and D is the distance flown in kilometres divided by 1000.
3. The fee applies to each commercial and non-commercial flight departing from airports in Portuguese territory.
4. Exemptions: “Fully electric aircraft”, PSO flights, State, Instruction, Medical emergency, SAR, and departures following landings for technical, meteorological or similar contingency reasons.

 

Examples: G650 Lisbon-Newark, G7500 Azores-Cairo

The formula can be more easily written as:
€20 x Seats x Distance

• A Gulfstream 650 with 14 seats operating LPPT/Lisbon – KEWR/New York Newark: The distance is 5,447km. The charge is thus €20 x 14 x (5.4+1) will get a bill for 1,792 Euro ($2,000 USD).
• A Global 7500 with 19 seats calling in to LPAZ/Santa Maria for gas on the way to Cairo: the LPAZ-HECA distance is 5,223 km. The charge here is €20 x 19 x (5.2+1) = 2,356 Euro ($2,600 USD)
• For comparison, an Airbus 330-200 operating LPPT/Lisbon – KEWR/New York Newark will pay 500 Euro ($550 USD). The charge is simply based on €2 per passenger (250 on board). An A330 will burn about 90,000 lbs of fuel, compared to about 30,000 lbs for a G650. This means that the G650 is being charged about 12 times more in total.

 

Why is this happening?

Because of the “war” on private jets declared by Greenpeace and other groups. Their aim: tax business jets out of existance.

Although the new tax only came into effect a few days ago, it was signed into law in April 2023. The first few months of this year saw media across Europe pay attention to a Greenpeace “report” on business aviation, claiming massive increases in business jet use using super-flawed data (their baseline was 2020, which wasn’t that busy for some reason). The EBAA countered with some actual facts, but it wasn’t enough to stop the disinformation spread.

In Portugal, the PAN (People, Animals, Nature) political party convinced the government to sign this tax into law as a budget amendment.

 

So who has to pay, and who doesn’t?

Since this has just come into effect, expect further clarifications and changes, but so far:

👿 Pay the punishment tax:

• Any flight leaving Portgual using an aircraft with 19 seats or less (aka all business jets)
• Irrelevant if commerical or private ops – all must pay

🦄 Exempt from the punishment tax:

• Fully electric aircraft (If you see one flying, let us know)
• PSO flights (A European thing where governments give you money to operate unpopular routes, so they would be charging themselves)
• State flights (The government exempting themselves again)
• Flights wholly operated by reticulated, northern, or southern giraffes (we threw that in, but it makes as much sense as the others)
• Medevac, training, SAR flights, and diversions for unforeseen events

 

More on the tax

There’s plenty of uncertainty around the new rules for now, but we’ll update this article as we find out more.

• EBAA – Portugal introduces new Carbon Tax
• FCC Aviation – Portugal Carbon Tax
• Original law (in Portuguese)

Do you know more about this? Help us out with any new information! Email news@ops.group or post below in the comments – Obrigado!

 

 

It looks like summer ops to Portugal are going to be tough. There are restrictions at the two main airports, LPPT/Lisbon and LPPR/Porto, and parking elsewhere is going to be challenging too. Here’s the lowdown…

Strikes

Just before we get stuck in, it’s worth knowing that there are border control staff strikes planned over the next month at the major airports in Portugal.

• LPPT/Lisbon will be impacted 05-10 local time every Sat-Mon until the end of June.
• Strikes at other airports are planned for all day every Friday until the end of June.

More info here.

LPPT/Lisbon

Until the end of the official IATA Summer Season (that’s Oct 29, to you and me), most aircraft will be limited to max 60mins turnaround time (and Code A and B aircraft only get 45mins). There’s no Notam on this – it’s hidden away in AIP SUP 61/22. Local handlers expect limited summer slots too. Contact them at lis@omnihandling.com. So essentially, it’s drop-and-go’s only from now til November!

LPPR/Porto

Porto also expects to be busy this summer. They’re saying that parking will only be granted for 4 days max (96 hours), and can be requested only within 15 days of your planned trip. They do have a hangar which could accommodate longer parking, but the airport does not have a towbar for GA/BA aircraft so you’ll have to bring your own! Contact local handler opo@omnihandling.com for more info.

LPCS/Cascais

One to consider, especially if you’re headed to Lisbon as it’s jus up the road. You don’t need slots here, and they say that they normally have parking availability over the summer. The airport is open from 7am till sunset, but will open early/late for an extra fee. Contact the local handler at cascais@omnihandling.com.

LPFR/Faro

You need slots and parking approval, and they regularly run out of both during the summer months. Although technically open 24/7, the runway is closed every night from 23-06z due to noise restrictions. Contact the local handler at fao@omnihandling.com.

LPBJ/Beja

A cheeky extra option to consider. This is a join civil/military airport, so you just need to get clearance in advance (they say to give 48hrs for this), but they usually have parking available.

Your Reports!

We’ve had a couple of recent Airport Spy reports from OPSGROUP members who have operated trips to Portugal – there’s one for LPPT/Lisbon, and one for LPCS/Cascais.

LPPT/Lisbon

• Had to wait for fueler and missed our TSAT. Make sure you respect your numbers in LPPT… don’t mess with TSAT and EOBT otherwise you are not going anywhere.
• Slots required, +/-20 minutes. Pax must remain onboard unless they want to take a ride to the terminal and clear immigration, but there’s no FBO to sit in anyways.
• We had four outbound crew members and all of the bags to support a two-week trip, plus catering. We dragged all of it up and down a few sets of stairs in the terminal, and everything had to go through a carry-on sized x-ray scanner at the security checkpoint. It took at least 20 minutes from curbside to parking stand and it wasn’t pretty.
• We did not experience aircraft servicing delays as indicated in other reports; our late-night (2300) timing may have helped. There is a hard midnight curfew for non-commercial ops and some night restrictions for commercial ops outlined in the 10-1 pages, so be mindful of potential delays sinking a late-night tech stop.
• Almost all of the parking stands require a pushback. The parking stand was assigned by the airport authority on an ad-hoc basis, so the handler could not reserve one of the few taxi-through parking stands ahead of time. Pushback was with a Lektro, so no towbar required. TOBT was coordinated through the handler and pushback was requested/authorized by ATC.

LPCS/Cascais

• We ended up in LPCS when, less than 12h to departure time for an 8h leg we were informed that LPPT would be unable to accommodate parking despite booking weeks in advance.
• LCPS has a short runway but is still very accommodating for larger aircraft. If you have the marginal performance to land (and depart) there, this should be your top choice! There is ample ramp space to accommodate even the largest BizJets and local terrain is of little concern for most BizJets at the weights required to get in and out of their runway.
• Omni handling was excellent and they clearly were very proud of their airport, they are incredibly friendly and welcoming. The handlers were a bit discombobulated on the departure, handing us the wrong flight package and then an incomplete package but they worked hard to get us everything we needed.
• Clearing customs inbound was a bit difficult unfortunately – they have to manually inspect your baggage. If you have a lot of luggage do plan extra time. It took at least 3-5min per luggage (including hand luggage.)

We want your reports!

If you’ve been to Portugal and can share some info on how the trip went, let us know! Or even better, skip the middle man and file an Airport Spy report!