From the AOPA site
Unfortunately the same EU law means the UK is required to introduce a tax on avtur used for recreational purposes, and this has been fixed at 50.35p a litre. Because only a tiny amount of avtur is used for private pleasure flying, HMRC will gather the tax on an ‘honesty box’ system where users will declare each quarter what proportion of their fuel was used for pleasure. All flight training and business use will be exempt.
A much more likely explanation, Mike, for this apparent apathy is that most avtur burners affected by this are
owners of
- DA42TDi
- Turboprops (e.g. Jetprop, Meridian, TBM700/850)
- Light jets (non AOC ops)
Virtually all of these people will have an IR, which means they left the "pilot information distribution community" years ago and consequently never heard of this proposal. The flight training business does not embrace owner pilots so these people are out on their own.
Most real pilots who fly to real places don't hang out on pilot forums, either.
Chatting to other pilots who I bump into at airports confirms the above. These people mostly operate outside "the system" and don't receive any of the pilot information which you and I are so familiar with. The only publications they are likely to read regularly are the U.S. Flying and U.S. AOPA magazines because these are informative for the kind of flying these people do.
Same goes for e.g. EASA pilot licensing and certification proposals. The vast majority of stakeholders are completely unaware of them. I have lately been contacting the Marketing VPs of the bigger iron makers and it turns out they were totally unaware.
Interesting that "flight training" is exempt. Does this mean that an owner pilot who receives training in his own plane gets duty free avtur for that flight?
This will kill off the diesel retrofit market.