The interaction between Navigation (Nav) Costs and environmental charges creates an incentive structure where airlines often burn more fuel—and create more pollution—specifically to save money.
To understand the conflict, we must distinguish the mechanisms of the two main charges:
* Nav Costs (The Service Fee): These are “tolls” paid to Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) (like DSNA in France or NATS in the UK) for guiding the aircraft.
* ESG Charges (The Eco-Tax): These are penalties like the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) or CORSIA defined by political bodies (European Commission, ICAO).
How It’s Calculated: Strictly based on Fuel Burn / CO2 Emissions. (e.g., 1 tonne of fuel \approx 3.15 tonnes of CO2) and who Gets the Money: Government Treasuries.
This money leaves the aviation system.
The Calculation…
Airlines are profit-driven entities. Their flight planning systems view the “direct route” not as the physical shortest line, but the financial shortest line.
A major conflict arises here: Nav Costs are often significantly higher than ESG costs.If Country A (e.g., France) has high Nav fees, it becomes expensive to fly through.
Even though the ESG tax discourages burning extra fuel, the savings from avoiding the expensive Nav fee often outweigh the cost of the extra fuel plus the ESG tax on that extra fuel.
The Tango Route Example shows us if we consider a flight from London to Tenerife where the Direct Path flies over France.
The airline pays high French Nav fees to DSNA or you take the Alternative (Tango) route.
The airline routes the flight via “Tango” airways (e.g., T9) over the Atlantic is airspace is managed by Oceanic controllers (like Shanwick), whose fees are significantly lower.
The airline saves a fortune on Nav fees, however, because the route is longer, they burn more fuel.
The airline happily pays for the extra fuel and the slightly higher ESG tax because the Nav fee savings are so massive.
This exposes a fundamental flaw in the regulatory intent if the goal of ESG (taxing fuel) is to reduce emissions.
However, because Nav Costs (taxing distance/weight) are the dominant expense in European airspace, the financial incentive forces airlines to prioritize avoiding “tolls” over saving carbon.
Do you think using ESG to reduce nav costs would be a good idea or are taxes more important?
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