These constant myths on the airline industry being hugely environmentally unfriendly are wrong, and need to be corrected. IATA states that airline fuel efficiency improved 20% in the last decade, nearly 5% over the past 2 years alone. Today's modern aircraft consume, on average 3.5 litres per 100 passenger kilometres. This is similar to a small compact car but with 6 times the speed. Next generation aircraft—the Boeing 787 and Airbus A380 are targeting fuel efficiencies below 3.0 litres per 100 passenger kilometres. Air fuel should not be taxed because air transport pays entirely for its own infrastructure—a US$42 billion annual bill. Airlines pay when they land, when they fly and when they park. This is completely different from both road and rail. On top of that air transport is a cash cow for many governments. In Europe every rail journey is subsidised between €2.4 and €7.4. But every air journey contributes between 4.6 and 8.4 Euros in government revenues and avoided expenditure.
We're talking about customer experience, and airlines shouldn't have to face the burden of accommodating pax via a law, when other travel industries don't have to.