I'd love to see a little man/lady in HMRC trying to chase APD payment after seven days is up, from a multitude of visiting, non-domiciled business jets on say 'offshore' registers, the Russians, Nigerians etc.
If they come after the UK airports or FBOs because that's an easy option, they'll be fighting them in the courts, as they'll all tell them to get stuffed.
If anyone needs to act on behalf of an operator it's probably best to court the flight planning companies assistance rather than airports/FBOs/handlers.
The poor UK-based (and some EU) operators will be easy targets because they are easy to track down, in particular the AOC holders, but all the other non-EU 'private' operators with aircraft titled to some obscure Delaware solicitor's office or a post box in Bermuda, not a hope! Collecting from airlines is easy, collecting from business aviation operators a nightmare!
From the outset, the UK GA industry generally said it would cost more to administer than it will collect in revenues from the GA sector. The easy target operators will be dissadvantaged, the non-EU, more obscure operators will probably get away with not paying and if they try to penalise the handlers for not collecting it, there will be carnage in the courts.
I wonder if say a Russian jet that forgot to pay up on the last visit will be impounded on their next visit to London?
It's a complete joke. Let's have a revue in a year and just see how many non-domiciled visiting jets have paid up as required!
Just a disaster for the UK industry.