Passenger Duty Tax Increase - Petition

[On-MarkBob]

The increase in Passenger Duty Tax will have a significant effect on the British Aircraft Industry. At a time when we are already suffering from the economic downturn, this tax will drive even more of our customers to either go to Europe to fly or not fly at all. No-ones job is safe from this.
As we are the only country in the world to have this tax, the British Airline Industry will be put at a serious disadvantage. Britain is no longer a ‘Super Power’ and it is not up to us to put the world’s problems to rights on our own. Brown talks about ‘levelling the playing field’, but clearly has a problem with the understanding of the word ‘level’. While he and his ‘cronies’ are happy with their expense accounts and gold plated pensions, perhaps we should campaign for an ‘MP Tax’ and see how they like being taxed out of their jobs. Whether you support the ‘Green’ issue or not, this tax is unfair and we must make our stand. Next year the airline industry will suffer even more than this year, as our customers have already shown that in the pre-booking of holidays, which is significantly down this year. Essentially, we have been surviving this year on the bookings taken last year before the ‘Crunch’, next year is looking like a disaster for our industry as it is without this tax increase.

We must all sign the petition and do it now, get as many others you can to help!

Follow the link: Petition to: reconsider its intention to more than double Airline Passenger Duty (APD) in 2010. | Number10.gov.uk (http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/APDIncrease/)

[Carrier]

Quote: “As we are the only country in the world to have this tax,.....”

Huh? What does he smoke? Take a look at Canada’s passenger taxes and add-ons as a First World example and for the Third World you can pick just about any country in sub-Sahara Africa. (and that's without the bribes!)

[Avitor]

Signed. The thieving swine!

[Dengue_Dude]

Gun, foot.

Foot, Bang.

Ouch! another toe shot off.

Let's help the demise of yet another industry.

I suppose they've got to pay for a war somehow. . .

[fireflybob]

Well with a general election looming before long, I for one if canvassed by any political party will raise this issue with them and if they indicate that they still intend to increase aviation tax I will tell them in no uncertain terms that they do not have my vote!

Petition signed - fed up with Broons Government jumping on this bandwagon!

[the_stranger]

Not as a point of critisism, but how would passengers go to Europe to fly? Allthough I can understand for some people the added amount makes it to expensive to fly, I cannot see how they would fly from another country just to avoind that tax.
What happend for instance in Holland when they applied that same sort of tax, was that people living close to the border discovered other (foreign) airfields that were cheaper (no tax), but, very important, also closer than Schiphol or any other Dutch airfield.
I do not see British passenger taking the train to France and fly from there.

Aside from that, that tax is flawed and illogical and should be removed or apllied with more common sense (eg. world/Europe wide)

[wiggy]

UK air passengers can't avoid the tax completely, however the proposed changes make the taxation on Longhaul Flights much higher than shorthaul ones.

Budget 2009: how changes to Air Passenger Duty will affect passengers - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/5200324/Budget-2009-how-changes-to-Air-Passenger-Duty-will-affect-passengers.html)

The fear in the industry is that people will hop on a shorthaul flight to places such as Amsterdam / Frankfurt/ and pick up their longhaul flight from there.

As an aside, some Brits have become very good at sniffing out "cheap" flights - I wouldn't rule out some crossing the channel by train in search of a cheaper deal.

[Michael SWS]

On the other hand, (from BBC News):
Darren Johnson, from the Green Party, said it was a good thing if people were discouraged from flying.

"We need to be increasing the air passenger duty," he said. "Aviation is simply not paying its way in terms of the environmental damage it causes."

A Treasury spokesman said: "Flying is relatively undertaxed, with no VAT on tickets or duty on aviation fuel.

"The changes to aviation duty better reflect the environmental costs of flying and help ensure that aviation contributes its fair share to public services."
Let's hope this thread is soon moved to the Jet Blast forum, where it belongs.

[Sonic Bam]

I recall that when Gordon Brown originally introduced APD, in his statement to Parliament when he announced it, he said that all the revenue raised would be used on environmental projects.

It would be good to find that statement and use it as the basis of a Freedom of Information request to find out exactly how much has been raised since ADP was introduced and how it has been spent on "environmental projects".

I started thinking about this again when the government levy on phone users to raise revenue to develop a home broadband network was announced. Call me a cynic but how much of that will go on a broadband network?

:hmm:

[Serenity]

This has nothing to do with the enviroment, it will just be another stealth tax, used to boost the coffers of an overspending and ineffective government!!!

:mad:

[rolling]

Splendid artical.Unfortunately whilst we are int the hands of liars,cheats and in some cases fraudsters.ther will be even more increases in APD and other taxes.Brown and his cronies have to go,but who will replace them?I see no other party at the moment who will address these problems,or can address them when you consider the financial mess the country is in,particularly the debt mountain we face.The ship has sunk,swim away as soon as possible,and do not stay around and just moan.

[Doors to Automatic]

Yet another stealth tax.

Do you think that this cash will go to "green" projetcs? Off course it won't.

It is just another excuse for that dreadful enelected cretin to repress us more.

Roll on the next election. I hope Cameron will exercise a bit more common sense when he gets into No 10.

Even if aviation needs to be taxed more doubling a tax which has already been doubled is an outrage.

[Michael SWS]

Roll on the next election. I hope Cameron will exercise a bit more common sense when he gets into No 10.But the Conservatives have promised to cancel the proposed third runway at Heathrow...

Oh my, just who is a PPRuNE reactionary supposed to vote for? :confused:

[A2QFI]

Does anybody REALLY think that the money raised by Air Passenger Duty is spent mitigating the environmental effects of flying? Probably spent flipping second homes and buying duck houses, knowing these shysters!

[757_Driver]

Its amazing how, if you tell a lie for long enough it becomes "Truth". Before hand wringining about wether this money actually goes to environmental projects, its worth reflecting that the real truth is there are no, or exceedingly minimal, environmental effects of flying. Its just another class war from the same people that brought you CND, Anti-capitalism etc etc.
Deforestation contributes more CO2 in one year than the total combined effects of all aviation, in the world, EVER - i.e from 1903 to date!
The internet emits more CO2 than aviation - is that gonna be taxed out of existance?
Wanna really do something for the environment - don't eat meat. Wheres the Beef tax - contributes towards deforestation AND methane emissions!

I'm all in favour of a true CO2 tax on every product. Except that imported chinese crap would treble in price, we'd all have to be veggies, but we'd get to fly on holiday cheap.
Oh well. You get what you deserve I guess. The UK population in general are a bunch of subservient sheep. I will be sitting pretty abroad with my family in the future whatching the UK become the worlds most environmentally concious, politically correct, but thirld world, economy.

[llondel]

I did notice that recent pricing of some flights showed that the taxes, duty and other charges were more than 50% of the total cost. However, LHR-SFO is still cheaper than AMS-SFO, so we're not all decamping to Europe for long haul just yet.

[Longhitter]

The Dutch variant of APD was abolished effective the 1st of July for the following reasons:

a. Schiphol and other airports in The Netherlands were losing significant amounts of passengers to airports just across the border;
b. It did not discourage significant amounts of people from flying;
c. It is thought that the positive effect on the environment is negated by the fact that passengers travel longer distances by car and rail (for short to medium haul flights) or even aircraft (for longhaul flights) to their departure airport.

The necessity of any such tax aside, the only way to avoid 'evasive manoeuvring' is to introduce it across all of Europe. Escaping the APD in the UK by car is not an option, but for a family of four it might be very interesting to book a flight to AMS/CDG/FFM/DUB and catch a longhaul flight from there.

[nilcostoptionmyass]

757 driver,,

"Oh well. You get what you deserve I guess. The UK population in general are a bunch of subservient sheep. I will be sitting pretty abroad with my family in the future whatching the UK become the worlds most environmentally concious, politically correct, but thirld world, economy"

couldn't agree more,

people Will travel to AMS / CDG / FFM and fly long haul from there.

Money once again leaving the country.

The total tax take will go down, unemployment will go up.

Fools.

[WHBM]

The tax is a typical example of how the government Civil Servants have an overwhelmingly London bias.

The huge increase in long-haul tax will divert a significant number away from British aviation to connect with airlines based on the near Continent. Yes, looked at from London this is a notable inconvenience and will not happen a lot there. But for those from provincial points (the majority of the population of course) who have to make a connection anyway, they may as well do it in Amsterdam as in London.

The reduction in connecting passengers from say Teesside to London has been accompanied in recent years by an increase on the service from there to Amsterdam. And now the whole Teesside to London air service has been lost, a major blow to the economy of Teesside. Well done Government !

The direct services from Belfast to Newark and Toronto will be especially badly hit, passengers will just drive down the road to Dublin.

[flowerpot1]

Just to clarify a couple of things:
Firstly, UK APD was introduced by John Major's tory government in 1994.
Secondly, if you plan to avoid the long haul APD by transiting through a near Europe airport, you will only achieve this if you buy two separate tickets and are prepared to put up with the hassle that will entail. i.e. checking in twice, collecting bags twice etc.
If you have a single ticket for say GLA-SYD you will pay the UK to Australia APD rate whether your ticket is GLA-LHR-SYD or GLA-AMS-SYD, provided that the transit time is less than 24 hours. HMRC assess UK APD on the whole journey and not just on the first flight departing from a UK airport.

[nilcostoptionmyass]

Flowerpott ! have you been smoking something ?#

What are you talking about ?

If I book a ticket to AMS and collect my bags --- wow what hassle to save £340.......

then check in on KLM, how are the UK tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax tax collectors going to know anything about it ??????????

Further more, how can you have UK aviation, a 'global' industry having different 'tax' than the rest of europe ?

This as usual is nothing to do with the 'environment', it is more social engineering and the money will no doubt be paid out to public servant pensions and exported to Romania in the form of child allowance.

[Crepello]

My team regularly flies between the US and the Middle East or West Africa. Standing orders were to transit through CDG or AMS, due to UK taxes. I understand that UK carriers compete better lately - but only by compensating for higher duties through lower base fares. Great work, Comrade Brown... :mad:

As a professional engineer, I take carbon emissions and global warming as very serious issues. I'm incredibly frustrated to see these noble topics hijacked by transient politicians with a limited grasp of the underlying sciences, and the impact this has on public opinion. Enquiring minds will rightly question weak rhetoric. The scientific community may need years to regain the credibility these fools in the limelight have cost us.

Nurse, my pills...

[Katamarino]

Maybe I am looking in the wrong places, but I have found it cheaper to fly from Amsterdam to London, and then long haul, than to just go direct from Amsterdam. By quite a margin, too. Even more stupidly, its usually cheaper for me to fly from Amsterdam to Heathrow, then to the East VIA Amsterdam (using the same flight I'd have been on if going direct from Ams), than it is just to fly direct.

The airline pricing business is a nonsense. No wonder it annoys people.

[WHBM]

Maybe I am looking in the wrong places, but I have found it cheaper to fly from Amsterdam to London, and then long haul, than to just go direct from Amsterdam. By quite a margin, too. Even more stupidly, its usually cheaper for me to fly from Amsterdam to Heathrow, then to the East VIA Amsterdam (using the same flight I'd have been on if going direct from Ams), than it is just to fly direct..
The reason for this is that there is a good level of demand from those business travellers, and others, to go nonstop to their destination, Brits from London to New York, or Dutch from Amsterdam to New York, at say £800 return.

Once those are accounted for, there are some spare seats that each airline could sell to those who will make an indirect, longer journey in return for a cheaper fare. So these then get offered at a less price. The aim is to get the maximum revenue overall. The numbers prepared to dogleg for a cheaper fare in this way are limited, so you do not get much "revenue dilution", that is people who would have paid the higher fare but find they can take advantage of a lower one.