Ticket Taxes – Best Practices

Since the 1980s, many governments have required the airline industry to collect taxes, fees, and charges from consumers on their behalf. These amounts have increased from less than USD 1 billion annually to more than USD 64 billion today, resulting in significant administrative and financial burdens for the airline industry and higher costs for consumers.

ICAO has long expressed concern regarding the proliferation of inefficient and burdensome taxes on air tickets that not only increase the cost of air travel, but equally create a negative economic impact on the sustainable development of air transport and the protection of the customer. Ticket taxes imposed on passengers by governments or other charging authorities may reduce the demand for air travel, which is highly sensitive to price changes. This, in turn, will hamper economic growth. IATA has compiled the official airline industry recommended processes for taxes and charges, and best practices on dealing with governments and authorities.

Ticket Tax Box Service

Besides the cost of the tax, and the cost of collection, airlines must address a third element of complexity, which is the administrative burden related to mapping the applicable official passenger ticket taxes, fees, and charges. IATA’s online platform, “Ticket Tax Box Service” (TTBS), responds to the growing need for airlines to collect taxes, fees, and charges on air tickets through automated ticketing systems. To ensure that the correct rules and rates are used for every ticket, TTBS enables airlines, Global Distribution Systems, Online Travel Agents, IT solution providers, and airfare search engines to have access to the latest passenger ticket taxes, fees, and charges published worldwide by official sources, in a single global database compiled by IATA.