Another excuse for more tax.

[touch&go]

The UK government wants to tax the aviation industry for polluting the environment, they want to charge £40.00 for long haul and £9.00 for short haul, what will this do to improve the environment?, it’s just another way of getting more tax out of middle England,

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=businessNews&storyID=2382201

[hapzim]

Will hit our industry, but they win all round, encouraging people to use their cars instead for short haul, sitting in those jams burning highly taxed petrol.

140+ cars takes up much more room than 1 aircraft. And think of all that congestion charge and soon to come road tolls.:mad: :mad:

[akerosid]

All very shortsighted unfortunately, but particularly as it doesn't stop people from flying over to Amsterdam, Paris or Dublin, to get long haul flights and avoid such a punitive tax, if it comes about.

Moreover, it ignores the fact
(a) that it's in the interests of the economy for people to travel and indeed, one of the founding principles of the EU is the free movement of persons,
(b) that it's surely far more economical, from an environmental point of view for 180 people to fly on a 737 from London to (say) Glasgow than for the same number of people to travel in 45 cars, and
(c) that if there is a better mode of transport, environmentally speaking, it's probably rail (electric), but that's hardly a feasible option in the UK at the moment.

[Danny]

There was more about this in The Times (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-611332,00.html) today. What caught my eye was some of the analysis which didn't quite add up:Yesterday’s paper calculated that a Boeing 747 travelling 3,700 miles, the distance from London to Miami, would emit 171 tonnes of carbon. The cost of the environmental damage caused by the flight is therefore £12,000. The cost per passenger would be £40, based on British Airways’ current record of selling 300 seats on a 400-seat 747.

The paper also measures the climate change costs of the eight tonnes of carbon emitted by a Boeing 737 flying 600 miles, the distance from London to Nice. Each passenger would pay about £4, based on an average of 135 seats sold on the aircraft.

This morning I have just done a similar trip in a B737 from Manchester to Lyon which is just under 600 nm and we used about 4,000 kg of fuel each way. Can someone with more knowledge than me in these matters please explain how four or even eight tons of JetA can propel 55 tons of aircraft and pax over nearly 1,200 nm at M0.75 AND make all that noise AND leave behind it's own weight in carbon? :confused:

Are they trying to say that the amount of fuel burnt leaves behind the same weight in carbon gasses? If so, what about the energy used? Didn't anyone explain to the authors of this 'paper' about E=mC2?

[Final 3 Greens]

Danny

On the figures from the newspaper, the 737 deposits more solids by weight than a Lancaster travelling to the Ruhr valley and back ;)

Mind you, anything is possible from this government .... just look at what they are trying to do to small businesses...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2829781.stm

[BUSTACLOUD]

just received my next 12 installments of council tax up from 75pounds per month to 100pounds WHAM just like that no opposition.Thank god im off to warmer tax free climes NEVER to RETURN.:mad: :cool: :mad:

[SOPS]

:* What really worries me, is this almost insane attitude to aviation as a whole at the moment. It almost seems as if there is some hidden agenda to shut down aviation as a whole everywhere. First there is crazy security laws, next more crazy security laws, lets throw in "see if I can find a "drunk" pilot, as 'I stand at my xray scanner' then "that did not stop them", so lets blame them for killing polar bears, and tax them to the hilt (again).

Just WHAT is going on here? Perhaps it is time for us all to become united, and say enough IS enough. All of us, and I mean ALL of us together, could stop this crazy cycle that we are going thru.

Or perhaps I am misguided. Answers on a postcard please.

Regards SOPS:eek:

[Dubliner No.1]

The Cost of the Environmental Damage on a 747 is therefore 12,000 gbp?

How on earth do they work out a monetary figure?

Answers on a postcard!

[Puritan]

Dependent upon the number of passengers onboard, a typical B737-300 ( the low cost airline aeronautical chariot of choice ) uses the following amounts of fuel:

2670 kg / flight hour when full of passengers
2600 kg / flight hour when 75% full of passengers
2380 kg / flight hour with no passengers

Now as I’m going to compare the fuel used when flying, to that used in a car full with four people on the same journey, I’m going to assume that my B737 aircraft is also full with 148 passengers onboard, i.e. both car and aircraft are operating at their max capacity & efficiency.

So we know that when our B737 is full of passengers, the weight of fuel burnt in one hour on an average sector: 2670 Kg

Working that back into volume ( using a Kerosene specific gravity of 0.8 ) it equates to: 2670 / 0.8 = 3338 Litres ( * 0.2204 ) = 736 Imperial gallons.

Now in one hour a typical B737 will cover, say, 500 statute miles.

So how many miles to the gallon is that ? 500 / 736 = 0.68 miles to the gallon

Ouch ! That sounds awful, doesn’t it ? – but hold on, this is a machine that’s moving 148 passengers.

If we divide the volume of fuel used in one hour by the number of pax on board : 736 / 148 = 4.97 gallons of fuel per passenger per flight hour.

So miles per gallon per passenger ( 500 / 4.97 ) = 100

Or in other words, for each of the 148 passengers onboard our B737, it takes one gallon of fuel to move that person 100 statute miles.

Putting that in car terms, i.e. chunking together four people at a time, we can see that it equates to an airborne fuel efficiency of 25 miles per gallon - uhm, now does that figure sound familiar to car drivers ? – albeit that this is achieved at 500 MPH…..

Just try getting that kind of efficiency, when four-up, in your car at even 100 mph !

[bigballs121]

Its time to go expat I am sick to death of Gordon Brown and his cronies taxing us to death.

[warp factor]

Leaving for sunnier shores,....after thirty years in aviation....
kick back and work in a bar, someone pse turn out the lights!

[Hoping]

Puritan,

You went wrong with the maths.

Consider a B737 at 0.68 mpg with 148 passengers aboard.

If you want a "miles per gallon per passenger" figure you need to divide (not multiply!) this by 148 which gives 0.00459 mpg/passenger.

If you want "passenger miles per gallon" figure then you should multiply by 148 which gives your initial figure of 100 passenger miles per gallon.

Now, the average modern family car does 40mpg on the motorway and can carry up to 4 passengers. This is 160 passenger miles per gallon which is a higher figure is it not?!

[Puritan]

Hoping, I don't agree with you.... e.g. let me put the calculations another way......

We know that a B737 will ( on average ), when full with 148 passengers, use 736 imperial gallons of Kerosene to fly 500 miles - which it takes about one hour to do.

If we take the same 148 passengers out of the aeroplane and put them into cars - of which you will need 37 ( given four people per car ) - you could donate the same 736 IPG of fuel amongst all the cars - so providing each vehicle with 19.8 gallons with which to cover the same 500 miles.

Now with each car hauling four people and their luggage you will then need their vehicle to see a fuel economy of 25.3 mpg ( or higher ) in order to better what a single B737 is doing with the same 148 people, over the same 500 miles ( at 500 mph ).

Nb. I drive my 1.8 litre petrol powered Ford up and down the the road to LGW nearly everyday - a 68 mile round trip - and on average I get 25 mpg - though I'll admit that I'm nudging the 'disqualification zone' w.r.t to my speed most of the time - but I am the only one in the car.

[Hoping]

Puritan, all points taken and agreed with.

Therefore, since most cars will do more than 23mpg, most cars are more economical than the 737 on a per passenger basis. For example:

Ford Focus 1.6 5 door will do 51.4mpg on the open road. Let us be extremely negative and guess that this will reduce to 40mpg with 4 passengers and their suitcases (Although I imagine the Ford test of economy was conducted with at least one passenger!). If we share those 736 gallons between 37 of these cars they get 19.8 Gallons each. The cars do 40mpg over the 500 miles and end up using 12.5 Gallons of their fuel which leaves 7.5 Gallons per car, or 277.5 Gallons in total unused fuel which would come in handy I'm sure.

Even so, for many reasons, I would prefer to fly 500 miles than drive 500 miles.

[touch&go]

Hoping, you base this on 4 persons per car, but on a short haul flight of 500 mile, what are the size of the groups?, I think people travel on there own or in couples, not in groups of 4.

[Puritan]

One can imagine the state of four adults who’ve just spent (say) ten hours or more in a Ford Focus 1.6, complete with their bags & suitcases ( would they actually all fit in ? ), on a journey that involved driving 500 miles, i.e. the equivalent of from Brighton on the south coast to Dundee in Scotland !!! :eek:

And so just what price is put on stress and an early death ?

Say what ! Why not let's all use donkeys to get about on ? After all they're cheap, recyclable, and environmentally friendly ( aside from the noise and the flatulence ) – wherein we can all go back to living as peasants and indulge ourselves in a slower pace of life.

Look, in reality all I'm doing is pointing out the 'lies, damned lies, and statistics' that seemingly give the green light to certain people to broadcast reports about stuff that, in reallity, is not properly thought through and or is plainly incorrect - be that either by journo's or the 'do gooders' who wrote the report in the first place ( and just what lobby group do they represent, and / or what is their 'angle' ? ).

[jumpseater]

Can't comment on the figures as I too do not know how they were arrived at.

However in general terms:

Many 'Green' groups have long been trying to get an aviation fuel tax, not just in the UK. Traditionally these groups have been associated with noise issues, biased towards commercial aviation.

There are growing numbers of pressure groups who are getting on the band wagon, from oranisations such as WWF, Friends of the Earth, CPRE, down to the local wiminz institute. Expect these carbon issues to be highlighted at a new runway/terminal/airport public enquiry near you!

The major players angle is that they want to minimize damage to the environment by aviation on a global scale, down to the more local issues of airport development.

For those of you who have commented that we already have pax taxes, you are correct, but they are exactly what they say they are on the tin. However cargo flights are not subject to these taxes for obvious reasons. So the proposals are a blanket coverage tax worldwide. Please don't fall into the trap of thinking that a government will not act unilaterally on this tax, bigger world events are proving this at this time. If it comes I suspect it will be an 'EMMISSIONS CHARGE' initially, note that a TAX would be difficult to introduce because of the Chicago Conventions (article 24), what impact this will have on 'tankering' sectors will be very interesting!

Reports I have seen have included such proposals as limiting the number of flights an individual can take, and capping demand by heavy taxation. One of the key concerns was the number of empty seats being flown duplicated routes. The impact such proposals could potentially have both for our industry, and the socio economic result on the flying public is intriguing indeed! For an idea on one of the 'angles' as puritan puts it, check;
www.sasig.org
go to Technical reports and read 'Does Aviation Matter?' :eek:

[Hoping]

I totally agree with you Puritan that it would be hell driving four adults 500 miles in a Ford Focus. I also agree with Touch&Go that it might not be entirely easy to find 4 adults that want to make the trip at the same time.

So why don't we put 2 adults in 148/2=74 Ford Focus' then? Each Focus will by now surely manage its 50mpg on the open road. If we share those 736 gallons of fuel between the 74 cars they get just under 10 Gallons each. The cars do just over 50mpg over the 500 miles and end up using their 10 Gallons of fuel with none to spare.

My point is if you try to use this argument of efficiency against a "Greenie" who is trying to add tax to aviation then they can say that with 2 adults per car, the car is still as economical as a FULL 737 and that by increasing the number of passengers in the car higher efficiencies can be achieved. This is not to mention the fact that not every 737 is full and that other cars exist with higher fuel efficiencies...

Let us face facts. We don't fly London to Edinburgh to reduce fuel consumption. We fly because it is quicker and safer and more comfortable due to shorter time sat in a seat.

Be careful to ensure your arguments cannot be turned around and used against you.

[Puritan]

Which if taken to it's logical(?) conclussion means we really should resort to moving from A to B upon donkeys, does it not ?

Ah but, herds of Donkeys will generate methane and other green house gases ( as do lakes, dams, and resevoirs - but we don't hear much about that issue do we ? ).

As for the 74 cars, well they will have to be manufactured ( which uses an afwul lot of energy ) and they typically don't last as long as aeroplanes ( certainly not if one was to operate them as hard as a jet has to work - e.g. 14 hours per day, every day, year in year out ) so they'll have to be replaced ( more manufacturing ), to say nothing of the fact that they will cause more congestiion on the roads ( so better build some more roads).

So which is the more environmentally friendly - the aeroplane, the car, or the donkey ?

I jest, of course - but if only it were as easy as saying cars good, aeroplanes bad, or cars bad, donkeys good - but some would like us to believe that this is so.

[Hoping]

Puritan,

I don't think it is as easy as saying "cars are good, Aeroplanes are bad". I have only been trying to point out that your argument that a 737 is more fuel efficient than a car does not stand up and that you should not try to use it because it can be so easily turned around and used against you. That is all. Do you see?

Your other points: You are right. The "Greenie" argument I put forward could be advanced to the stage where we are all going around on donkeys which of course would be ludicrous. Equally though, if we are to extend your pro Aeroplane argument to its logical conclusion then we will all be flying in space shuttles from London to Edinburgh which would also be equally ridiculous.

It should by now be intuitively clear to most that given the choices that range from donkey to space shuttle there will be an option that is a lot faster than a donkey and a lot more fuel efficient than a space shuttle somewhere in between. My personal guess is that this would be the train rather than car or the aeroplane.

The focus of your argument should be that the lower fuel economy of aeroplanes is easily outweighed by the considerable benefits that aviation brings to the country. If you try to pretend that domestic aeroplanes are more economical than other forms of transport such as cars you will quickly lose the argument and that, depending upon who you are and who you are talking to, could result in higher taxes on aviation which we don't want.

[slim_slag]

Good thread here (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?threadid=81200) explaining how you can get more than one kg of CO2 from one kg of Jet A. Basically, you get the extra mass from the oxygen in the air when you burn the carbon. If the energy in a plane load of Jet A was released using EMC2 you would probably wipe out life on earth :)

I read an interesting article which showed that more chemical energy was released by the Jet A in the WTC attack than stored potential energy released when the towers collapsed. Cannot find it, it's out there somewhere, but there is one hell of a lot of chemical energy in a kg of fuel.

One thing with these taxes is that they are not applied to the problem. So you can bet your last dollar (and it might well be your last dollar the way things are going) that when global warming causes major flooding we will be gouged again. The money raised with todays "environmental" taxes will be long ago spent on things like war. I already try to avoid connecting via Germany because the taxes are higher than the UK. Enough of us thinking this way will reduce revenue for LH, raising airplane related taxes in the UK will obviously have the same effect on UK based airlines.

[cb9002]

When you burn jet fuel (or any fuel), the carbon in the fuel is oxidised with oxygen from the air, converting it from a high energy (relatively unstable) state in the fuel to a low energy (relatively stable) state as CO2. Is is the difference in energy between these states that is given out as heat and used to propel the plane.

This means that the weight of the carbon coming out of the back of the plane is exactly the same as the weight of the carbon you put into the fuel tanks earlier - so 10 tonnes of Jet A1 gives you 10 tonnes of exhaust carbon.

Now, as slim_slag has explained, carbon in hydrocarbon fuel is combined with hydrogen - the lightest weight atom. When you burn the fuel, you replace those hydrogen atoms with oxygen atoms, which are sixteen times heavier than the hydrogen atoms they replace. This is how one tonne of kerosene can create several tonnes of CO2.

The only sorts of energy release involving atomic change are radiative decay (such as from radon in people's homes), nuclear fusion (such as the H-bomb) and nuclear fission (modern nuclear power plants). E=mc2 isn't relevant otherwise.

[Anti Skid On]

Coming back to an earlier bit; whilst the differential between the two methods is neglible, consider this -

Each car has four tyres which also require energy to manufacture them

Each car creates greater congestion and hence decreases the efficiency of the roads (assuming they don't all decide to drive in the middle of the night)

Each car is also using 40 x lubricants (oil!)

Getting everyone on one mode of transport therefore makes sense (hence if they went on two coaches the difference would be yet another number crunching nightmare)

[El Thermidor]

Maybe the tax will help to fund the compensation payments for all the extra fatal road crashes that are caused by people driving, not flying.:)

[brakedwell]

If aviation is targeted, Robbin' Gordon should also tax those lycra clad weirdos on their racing bikes, and the flatulant cows (the four legged kind) farting in the fields. They contribute to global warmiong too! That's assuming that the green lobby has got it's facts right on the reasons for climate change, which is becoming increasingly doubtful.

[IceHouse]

I think a lot of people on this forum are missing the point, I mean as far as jet fuel is concerned it is not taxed unlike petrol, and as far as aviation is concerned a large proportion of commercial flights in the UK are charter to all the usual holiday destinations which I doubt very much are of much use to the UK economy, if anything they cause a negative effect.
I'm just saying that is it really fair for the population to subidise shellsuit flights to the sun which have virtually no value to the economy whilst heavily taxing all motorists at the same time bearing in mind the environmental damage caused by these aircraft, noise, pollution etc.
I fully understand the importance of scheduled flights to the economy which serve economic centres etc, but try telling local airport residents that these night flights carrying holidaymakers are of much benefit to our economy.

[Send Clowns]

Will someone please tell me why if a train is so much more fuel efficient per person than an aeroplane air travel is generally as cheap as subsidised rail travel?

[Hoping]

Send Clowns,

I can travel Edinburgh to Birmingham return by train with a fully open and flexible ticket for £50.

Which airline will offer a fully flexible return ticket for £50? (including taxes, as the £50 train ticket is inclusive of taxes)

Come on. We all love aviation but if we are to argue effectively against tax increases we need to stick to indisputable facts.

[bluskis]

Hoping

You have highlighted the problem.

None of the posts have argued effectively against this proposed tax.

The tax will be justified on technological and scientific grounds. I suspect these grounds are pseudo science, but I did post a question on the technical forum hoping for some expert opinions, alas very little transpired.

I suspect arguments about which car one would be prepared to travel on a long journey in and its fuel and manufacturing energy cost will carry little weight.

Driving across the Atlantic is well outside today's technology.

I think the airline business has to demonstrate that the government's scientific grounds for this proposed tax are clearly invalid, or accept the tax with its implications for the industry.

I mentioned on the other thread the very short time between the publication of what is called a preliminary report on the science and the tax proposal, a mere six months.

The reality is that this is too good an opportunity for raising money for the government to pass up, and no arguments will prevent it's introduction.

Once upon a time there was purchase tax, with a 'luxury' band at 60 per cent. This proposed tax may better be seen as a luxury tax.

[touch&go]

I was trying today to workout how much tax we pay directly and indirectly out of our pay packet, I reckoned that it must be close to 50%, so has anyone worked it out?.

Income Tax
National Insurance
Tax on Petrol, the Vat on the lot
VAT on nearly everything
Airport Tax
Council Tax
Road Tax
Tax on insurance

[qwertyuiop]

Dont forget

Stamp duty
Tax on savings
The raid on your pension fund

If you get to keep anywhere near 50% I would be very surprised.

[bluskis]

Don't forget special tax on your beer, and the tax paid for the privalige of employing you, paid by your employer at the rate of 11 per cent.

Total tax probably about 70%.

Can't really get my head round the calculation that everything you buy has suffered its own tax burden which is passed on to you, and the profits of the shopkeeper and producer are taxed.

[Grainger]

Don't forget the Poll Tax, which has to be paid out of what's left of your income after income tax, national insurance and your employers' 11% national insurance contribution.... :mad:

[terryJones]

This has always been a 'pet' niggle of mine, all the indirect taxation.
If Income Tax were set at, say 50%, everyone would moan at first, until they realised that it would cost about a pound a gallon for petrol, and the same sort of savings on ALMOST everything.
There would also be the hidden savings. All the Shiny @rse tax collectors that could go onto the dole, and have to start earning their money instead of stealing ours:p