Originally Posted by
Sallyann1234
Airline Passenger Duty should not have been applied to internal flights. Without that unreasonable debt hanging over FlyBe they might just have struggled through the Covid crisis.
APD is both an environmental tax and a revenue raising measure. Why should flights inside the UK be exempt when flights to outside are not? What makes aviation inside the UK so much more special than to outside the UK? Why is my London to Edinburgh flight any different from my London to Amsterdam flight for tax or environmental purposes?
Flybe had a small valid point when they complained they were being double taxed because a return journey from UK to another country is taxed for one takeoff from the UK but return flights in the UK are taxed for two takeoffs from the UK. That's the only part of any APD argument that holds water.
If your airline business can't survive with the same taxes that other airlines pay to fly the same places, then the problem is not the taxation. It's how you run your business - and that applies outside aviation too. A business that can't pay its taxes, or its employees decent wages, has no Gods-given right to survive.