Is this a change? I believe APD was previously payable by the passenger, based on the most distant point on their ticket (which encouraged split ticketing).

This alone could have a lot of ramifications, mostly negative to UK airlines. Do they know what they are doing? (No need to answer that - I know they don't)

Edited to add. This isn't workable ... What charge per passenger would QF/BA pay for a flight destined to Australia via SIN (or BKK)? It would seem that the either the Australia APD would never be paid, or that the airline would be charged the higher amount for all passengers, including those destined to SIN. :ugh:

What! An aviation policy dreamt up by the government which wasn't thought through? Say it ain't so!!

Cheer up. There's no tax increases on high speed trains, they get you there quicker than planes, don't burn umpteen litres of fuel to get up to 27,000 feet just to come down again and, in general, people like 'em. I agree that there should be no or less tax on long-distance flights because the only other way of covering those sorts of distances in by boat (sorry, ship) and you only do that if you're single or on a honeymoon.

Why not load up your 400 at LHR, fly to AMS, do a touch and go and then onto long haul destination. Each pax only pays the £13 short haul / band A tax. The Dutch scrapped the tax ages ago to support their aviation industry. When every long haul flight starts to do this then the public / politicians are going to question WHY. It's the same reason why aviation fuel isn't tax. Operators will find a way around it.

I think you will find that the APD is due to rise by the RPI (Retail Price Index) in 2013 and years after - so around 2.5 per cent me thinks. Just another aspect of rip-off Britain.

You prefer electricity generated by nuclear fission or by burning oil/coal?

Does it really matter as long as it keeps the lights burning and people are kept warm?

There’s a fine line between milking the cash cow and killing the goose that laid the golden egg… somebody call a vet!

This is supposed to be a "green" tax.

If in twenty/thirty years from now the climate change "experts" are proved to be wrong, will the government give us all a refund?

Not sure what point you're making but I'll answer as best as I can. Humankind in the 21st century is energy-hungry and the only practical way to feed that hunger at present is energy produced by coal, oil, gas and nuclear fission. Ideally I would prefer energy to be produced from so-called sustainable sources but we do not yet have the technology to do so. Spain, where I live, produces 30 percent of its energy by this means but still requires 70 percent by conventional means. As a way of reducing energy consumption, savings can be made by, for example, travelling by train from Valencia to Madrid rather than by aircraft.

My point is that you cannot automatically assume that rail is 'greener' than air. If you take all the factors into consideration - how the energy is produced, the footprint of (at least) dual track on concrete sleepers (vs 2km of runway on each end), the cost (money and CO2) of creating the rail, the load factors, the cost (or value) of people's time, etc - in isn't a given that rail is better. In some cases yes, but in others (particularly when the rail journey is over 3 hours) no.

I take your point. The train journey from Valencia to Madrid, city centre to city centre, is ninety minutes. The journey by aircraft, airport to airport, takes 55 minutes, plus 20 minutes at both end from airport to city centre, which, of course, uses more energy. Ninety five minutes. I would also argue that airport infrastructures easily match those of rail. The quoted air fare is 95 Euros - rail 90 Euros but for that price you can take three items of luggage. You pays your money . . . !

If the UK dropped into the sea, there would be no impact whatsoever on the “green” problem... other than a massive loss of tax revenue. Civilization needs to be able to move. The only other option is go back to the stone age.

Pardon me but this is another commonly used, but erroneous, argument of why rail is greener than air. City centre to city centre without the trip to the airport. But how many people are actually going centre to centre? I'd guess that in most cases either at the origin or at the destination but not so often both. For a passenger travelling from near the airport and destined near the airport on rail would be 130mins by rail vs 55 by air. (Or if we split the difference 110mins vs 75) Yes, for some journeys your comment is valid, but not for all.

OK, to go back to:

If he could, maybe he would, but aviation fuel taxes are government by the Chicago Convention of 1944, and for that reason are set at zero.

APD is, in some way, an attempt to "offset" that, but it risks being counter-productive when:

a) Higher rates of tax mean people visit other countries instead of Blighty and

b) People fly longhaul from non-UK airports to escape APD.

However, the government also know that for all the "jobs" the aviation industry supports, it also exports spending to other countries at a faster rate than it brings it in. This is where I think APD is, ironically, counter productive.

The arguments used by airportwatch & co are that aviation exports £, therefore we should discourage it by taxing it more. Except of course that as per (a), it has a far greater impact on inbound tourists, who are much more price sensitive.

I would like to see an unbiased model showing the net impact that APD has on the economy, and would suspect that as with many taxes, it reaches a peak before falling off. I don't think there is the political will to see it scrapped, but it certainly can't be milked for ever.

I say this sitting in NEV, having paid around £220 less for my long haul CDG-SXM sector than the equivalent LGW-SKB. But all told, by the time I've made the short hop across the pond, and the local connection, I have saved very little, just seen more places on the way :)

The departure tax from HKG is HK$120 - just under ten quid. On a Cathay Pacific business flight, comparing Hong Kong's airport what you get at LHR T3 for over 17 times the cost makes you realise what an extreme rip off this is.

Any change to NI's special status in this respect? And what's happened to the whispers in the Welsh Assembly about exempting passengers from APD if departing on the back of dragon?

With respect - those near the airport have to travel less, but those the other side of the city have to travel further. Most airports are outside the city boundaries, so everyone has to travel further than they would to reach the city centre rail station.

People also moved in the Stone Age! Of course people have to move. It's how they do it and how much energy is used in them doing so that is the point.

Don't you just love the govt's spin on all this! Tell me what is the difference between spin and lies?

Here is the rest of the article from BBC news

BBC News - Airlines urge review as UK air passenger duty rises by 8%