UK Chancellor to raise air taxes

[overstress]

According to the Daily Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=BEU0ADLFIEEIPQFIQMGCFFWAVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2006/12/02/nair02.xml) our pension-stealing friend Gordon "Robber" Brown is to increase passenger taxes in his pre-budget report on Wednesday.

This is presumably him jumping on the green bandwagon.

So-called Green taxes will do nothing for the environment but plenty to increase the takings of the most money-grabbing government the UK has ever seen.

Let's see how the budget airlines cope with this....

[ZFT]

It’s not too often the one agrees with MOL but in this case - an extract directly from the same Daily Telegraph article referred above. There was similar criticism from Ryanair, whose chief executive, Michael O'Leary, recently described calls for higher taxes to tackle climate change as "horse-****".
A spokesman said last night: "Any increase in APT will do nothing to protect the environment and will only line the Government coffers while making travel more expensive for ordinary passengers."

[flowman]

You could even argue that this will increase revenue for the likes of Ryanair.
They will inevitably pass on the increased costs to pax. Taxes are not refunded by Ryanair if pax do not fly. More tax on the ticket price equals more money not refunded.
I am sure that this is already a nice little earner for Ryanair, it will become even more of an earner.
MOL is , therefore, correct. It is "horse ****" and will certainly do nothing to deter the low cost carriers.

[Richard Taylor]

Hopefully the only horse sh!t flying about will hit this :mad: Labour Govt when we vote them out at the next election!!!! :ugh:

[GOLF-INDIA BRAVO]

Yes with all these stealth taxes they might as well take all our wages at source and give us a bit of pocket monet each week to spend on petrol etc so they can take it back again

G-I-B

[jongeman]

Hopefully the only horse sh!t flying about will hit this :mad: Labour Govt when we vote them out at the next election!!!! :ugh:

And hope that the next administration won't do exactly the same thing, which from experience (at my great age), they always do!

I like G-I-B's idea of pocket money. At least it'll be a fairer system and everybody will suffer, not just the poorest.

[GOLF-INDIA BRAVO]

Thanks Jongerman
Just think of all the jobs they would create in cental government to collect the money and then add a new wage deduction tax to pay for it

G-I-B

[jabird]

IIRC, APD is about the only tax which hasn't been stealthed. It was £10 on UK/ European flights when Labour came to power, then reduced to £5.

Did we really think the industry could "get away" with this tax "reduction" forever?

The chattering classes will repeat the mantra that aviation fuel is not taxed (ditto for buses via rebate, trains and ferries), and that aviation's contribution towards climate change is rising faster than their own hot air.

There will certainly be a green arms race between all of the main parties, and aviation is a soft touch. Yet the industry has done so little to present a balanced response.

We know MOL will just f and blind, whereas Easyjet have a more rational approach. However, both airlines are still just saying "we use efficient fleets, we're not to blame". Then the charter airlines will say they cram more people in at higher occupancy rates, whilst BA & co. ask for the most polluting long haul flights to be excluded because there isn't an international consensus on the issue.

Ultimately, all airlines will argue their own corner, but their voices will be drowned out by the envirovangelists, unless the industry can come up with some decent proposals of their own.

Emissions trading has to be a better way forward than tax. But the green lobby don't like this. Why? Because it involves asking the question "what is a reasonable price to pay in order to mitigate the alleged damage caused by flying." They just want to stop everyone else from flying, so the airports are free of clutter when they take their long-haul ecotourism trips to Costa Rica.

The current carbon cost of a return hop from London to Edinburgh is just £1.42, according to Climate Care (which tells you how to offset your flight, but doesn't acknowledge the concept of trains causing pollution). Compare this to the £10 APD (pax are doubly stung on internal flights, but again, airlines say very little about this).

It might well be a fair argument to say that airlines should pay something to the exchequer and something to cover their external environmental costs. But I get really worried when local authorities, central government and special interest groups unite to demand a switch from short haul flights to high speed rail.

Even though I think properly run trains can be a much more convenient option, I just don't trust the idea of giving anyone a blank cheque, considering our existing system's voracious appetite for burning up tax payers' cash. Whatever the true environmental costs of flying are, they are minimal compared to the 20p/mile subsidy to Virgin Trains, or the 3.6p/mile average UK rail subsidy. If I take a Virgin Train from Coventry to BHX, the subsidy for this short journey is greater than the allegedly unpaid environmental cost of a domestic flight.

By all means, let's have the debate about aviation's relatively small impact on climate change and relatively large economic benefits. Even the tourism deficit argument has limited sway when you consider that there always will be a natural leakage to sunnier climates(or ski resorts which can actually guarantee snow!). Our tourism deficit of £17bn is a significant problem, but still much less than, for example, Germany, which has an E38bn deficit.

This debate shouldn't be something for the airline industry to be run away from. Instead, we should present the facts as they are, and let people make their own minds up, as millions are already doing by voting their way through the airports. Just as high fuel prices have only had a limited impact on people's driving habits, I'm sure that a moderate increase in the cost of flying will not stop people taking holidays, whatever their incomes. We just need to make sure that common sense prevails, and ignore the alarmist scare tactics about impending doom in either the aviation industry, or the environment.

[True Blue]

Hopefully the only horse sh!t flying about will hit this :mad: Labour Govt when we vote them out at the next election!!!! :ugh:

I wonder when the great british population will eventually catch on to this government and do this??? It has been incredible what they have got away with over the past 10 yrs and they are still voted in. Do voters on the mainland ever pay attention to what is actually happening? And of course, air travel will be the next easy target, after pensions, to raise a lot of extra cash to disappear into a great black hole!!

True Blue

[EGAC]

As one UK newspaper put it today (paraphrased):

When APT is raised -

Not one airline seat fewer will be occupied.

Not one molecule of CO2 will be saved.

Ba$tard Brown (that well-known thief in a suit) will seize even more of YOUR money to spend as HE wishes - buying votes to keep HIM in the style to which HE has become accustomed.

YOU will have even less of YOUR money to spend as YOU wish.

Do you REALLY think that your political masters will be freeloading any less in their taxpayer-funded personal jets in future?

It is LONG overdue that MP's salaries should be reduced to the average industrial wage (with no fancy perks - travel or otherwise). We MUST force them to live in the same world as the rest of us - preferably in the (poorest) constituency area as chosen by their constituents - following which their home turf and thus this country as a whole would quickly become a much better place in which to live.

[pigs]

I don't know the exact figures, but, they are in the region of;
the UK produces around 2% of the world's harmful emissions and the UK owns/has registered around 3% of the world's aircraft.

Therefore, roughly, the UK's aircraft contribute less than 1% of the total emissions into the atmosphere.

This 'green' tax that the robbing bas**** Brown has introduced and wishes to increase is supposed to deter us from flying, is it? Even if all UK air travel stopped tomorrow there would be no noticable difference to air pollution.

We are being fu**ed over, ONCE AGAIN, by this government. I'm off to Spain soon, the immigrants can have this country, I've had enough.

[IB4138]

The problem is pigs that even though I live abroad, I will be subject to whatever so called "green" or departure tax, call it what you may, that the meddling miser thief, Gordon Brown-Organ's corrupt mind decides to make UK law.

To my mind any increase in these taxes should be levied only on UK residents and not us poor buggers who have already escaped and go back to visit friends and relatives there every so often, getting ripped off by all and sundry in the process!

[VIKING9]

The problem won't vanish when Labour are banished to the dungeons of hell where they belong. They have screwed this country beyond recognition and any other party who gets in will have a job on their hands to undo the mess currently in place. It will take years for this country to get back to some normality and in fact, I doubt it ever will. What used to be Great Britain, is now in fact a dead duck floating between 2 successful "countries". Ireland and mainland Europe.

[akerosid]

The aspect that still bothers me is the mechanics: how will the payment of £x to central government actually contribute to reducing CO2 emissions, or repairing the damage allegedly caused by it; will the taxes raised by clearly identifiable and held in a specific trust fund, because unless this is the case, the extra tax is just that. When the likes of Eddington says that people must pay the environmental cost of their decision to travel by air, that is meaningless if that cost is merely paid to central government.

And what about passengers who transfer through UK airports; will they still be subject to this tax? That's going to do wonders for UK airlines and their transit traffic; a really good idea, giving the likes of KLM, Lufthansa, SAS etc, a leg up over BA, bmi, Virgin etc.

[james170969]

Hopefully the only horse sh!t flying about will hit this :mad: Labour Govt when we vote them out at the next election!!!! :ugh:
My sentiments exactly! The sooner Tory Blair is out the better! If the government were so concerned about the envoironment we would have a much better rail system. I can't get from Glasgow / Ayrshire to London on a Sunday morning without changing trains four times and taking most of the day. I can however, fly with Ryanair from Prestwick or Easyjet from Glasgow just as cheaply (if not cheaper) and more directly. I think they are just using air taxes as an excuse to make money.

[Mr A Tis]

It's about time the airlines got their act together & formed an alliance to shout their corner. The green wellies have successfully targeted the loco sector & are making significant inroads into public opinion.

The airline industry has failed to promote some "facts" & fight back for public opinion. They should be running newspaper ads with evidence on just how little jets add to the global picture they complain so much about.
I don't understand why cars, trains & ships are being allowed to get away scott free. How many Gallons to the mile does a cruise ship do?

Anyone that thinks getting rid of Labour will make things any easier, needs their bumps feeling. Our smiley friendly Dave Cameron is on more bandwagons than Billy Cotton.:eek:

[Leodis]

Hopefully the only horse sh!t flying about will hit this :mad: Labour Govt when we vote them out at the next election!!!! :ugh:
....and the other lot will do so much better and we all live happily ever after.:rolleyes: