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Airport tax should go

ReenaSewraz
by Lovemoney Staff ReenaSewraz on 01 September 2012  |  Comments 26 comments

A family of four flying to the Caribbean have to pay £368 in airport tax. It's too much!

The UK’s air passenger tax, or APD (airport passenger duty), is the highest in the world. We’re now paying almost 400% more than other travellers in Europe.  

Introduced in 1994, it began as a £5 per person tax on short-haul flights in the UK and Europe and £10 elsewhere. But campaigners say it’s now pricing British families out of flying and discouraging tourists from visiting.

In April APD went up 8% and will rise again next year. This means right now a family of four travelling to Europe is shelling out around £52 in tax while those heading further afield to the Caribbean will have to pay £368.

In response to the rises, a campaign called A Fair Tax On Flying was launched earlier this year. A group of around 30 airlines and tour operators are behind it and they’re demanding an end, or a reduction, in APD.  And they already have 100,000 signatures from people supporting the campaign.

The Government is also under pressure to act after seventy five MPs added their names to a parliamentary notion calling for a review of APD.

You can’t get away with not paying APD and that’s why it’s an easy way for the Government to make money. However, the strength of the Fair Tax on Flying campaign shows just how pointless this tax is and will hopefully be a step forward in getting rid of it altogether.

What do you think about this tax on flying? Let us know in the comments box below.

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Comments (26)

  • MK22
    Love rating 142
    MK22 said

    As aircraft are responsible for some of the worst pollution in the world and pump it into the upper atmosphere where it can cause most harm, anything that reduces air travel is good. So this tax should be kept. (Now ducks from the howls of outrage from the rest of you)

    Report on 01 September 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • riblo123
    Love rating 18
    riblo123 said

    MK22 falling for the green propaganda ... Hasnt got it yet.... It's just another excuse to tax the population by people who make a career out of feathering their own pockets, the vast majority of whom have never had a real job.

    Whilst MK22 feels smug about paying huge amounts of tax just to leave the country the UK is fast loosing £millions each year as our EU competitors lower or in some cases have even scraped this innocuous tax altogether.

    The result has been that thousand of UK jobs have and continue to be lost as airports such as Schippol, Frankfurt and Paris (six runways) continue to take away Heathrows hub status and the huge sums this generates.

    Where does MK22 think all this tax is going? Does he/ she thinks it's making a difference to the planet ? Or like me think it's just another way for politicians to collect more revenue. Wake up and smell the coffee !

    In practice how is this affecting my travel plans and the planet this month. Well I will be travelling by ferry to Normandy, do the tour take a train to Paris and fly to Chicago, thus saving myself over £150 in tax.

    It is now well worth flying from the UK to a European hub on A budget airline and connecting to long haul flight from that EU hub as it saves £100s in unnecessary tax. It's not saving the planet just loosing valuable jobs and income for the UK

    Report on 01 September 2012  |  Love thisLove  3 loves
  • Talent
    Love rating 77
    Talent said

    Rip-Off UK with scum in charge, what does one expect?

    Report on 01 September 2012  |  Love thisLove  3 loves
  • wiliamson
    Love rating 4
    wiliamson said

    Funny how the government nagging about "harmonising" with Europe go strangely silent when Britons pay much more than other Europeans for anything.

    Report on 01 September 2012  |  Love thisLove  2 loves
  • worlduser
    Love rating 4
    worlduser said

    All I will say of your comment MK22 is, everyone to their own opinion.

    My thoughts on this tax is that it is just another excuse for government to take even more money from the hard pressed tax payer. Where do you think this "duty" goes? Is it used for reducing pollution? Doubt it. Just like road fund licence, the state of the roads leave a lot to be desired. Now they want us to pay tolls on top of this!

    APD is a nonsense tax, straight into government jolly fund. Wouldn't mind so much if it was actually spent where it was supposed to be spent.

    Why is it that people of this country are always at a disadvantage compared to other countries in the travel department.

    Better stop now, because the Mr. Angry in me would not present a case in a rational and truly reasoned manner!

    Must go, have another tax to pay!

    Report on 01 September 2012  |  Love thisLove  2 loves
  • edwardmk2879
    Love rating 57
    edwardmk2879 said

    I for one have deliberately taken a break from flying. It's becoming the death of a thousand cuts in the UK. Soon we'll be taxed for breathing. The problem is the government spending is out of control, but their solution is to thrash about taxing everything in sight instead of putting their own house in order.

    Report on 01 September 2012  |  Love thisLove  1 love
  • Meanmachine2
    Love rating 37
    Meanmachine2 said

    Then add the so called Airport Development charge that some airports levy.

    I dont know about improvements, one airport has a large sign board in the departure lounge saying how the money is spent & one item is maintenance. How can that be an improvement.

    It's just another rip off.

    Report on 01 September 2012  |  Love thisLove  1 love
  • electricblue
    Love rating 643
    electricblue said

    Livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions as measured in carbon dioxide equivalent, reports the FAO (United Nations). This includes 9 percent of all CO2 emissions, 37 percent of methane, and 65 percent of nitrous oxide. Altogether, that's more than the emissions caused by transportation. Most aircraft emissions are actually from piston engined planes which would be the easiest to convert to biofuels such as ethanol.

    I have never flown anywhere on holiday, but I'll stop flying on business trying to create jobs if those peddling the environmental claptrap about aircraft stop eating meat. Better still do us all a favour and stop breathing.

    Report on 01 September 2012  |  Love thisLove  2 loves
  • geejay
    Love rating 7
    geejay said

    UK Govt - and it doesn't matter which party is in power - will continue to hammer up anything they can describe as a 'green' tax as it is just about the easiest way for them raise money to keep on with their wasteful spending and feather their own pockets via expenses.

    MPs and civil servants do an incredible amount of foreign travel (often for no real purpose other than to demonstrate their own self-importance. Who picks up the APD on such trips? Why, we the taxpayers of course. So these clowns don't feel the effect at all.

    Oh! MK22, please get real.

    Make them personally pay the APD and see what happens!

    Report on 01 September 2012  |  Love thisLove  1 love
  • Mike10613
    Love rating 600
    Mike10613 said

    @electricblue - Climate change caused by livestock farting! You will believe anything as long as you can continue your long haul flights. I think some flights are essential, but most are not. Keep the tax, it seems many can afford it.

    Report on 01 September 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • electricblue
    Love rating 643
    electricblue said

    @Mike

    Just because you are happy Skyping your Chinese students does not mean that other people don't have to travel internationally. The matter of methane and the figures I quoted come from the United Nations. It is obvious to anyone other than a total idiot that the 1.5 BILLION cows on the planet are going to have a more significant effect than aircraft. Climate change is as a result of several factors, some of them part of a natural cycle. Air freight is much more of an issue than air passenger traffic and is a completely different side of the argument. I do not agree with potatoes from Egypt and flowers from Kenya being flown around the world but I sure as hell do not need to justify my business travel to the likes of you. I have NEVER flown for a holiday and have no intentions of doing so. I prefer visiting Scarborough to Santa Cruz, but have to visit my factory and various trade shows.

    Report on 01 September 2012  |  Love thisLove  1 love
  • AbogadoNZ
    Love rating 3
    AbogadoNZ said

    A great deal of air travel is simply unnecessary and it wastes a diminishing resource - fuel. As an ex-pat Brit living in NZ I feel the cost every time I return whether for work or leisure as I am self-employed. Add in the extra costs for travelling up the 'front of the bus' and it is no small matter. That said the tax is too low - especially for low cost inter-European flights. Perhaps the simplest solution is to tax the European trips at say £25 each way and say £50 each way for a transatlantic trip and £150 each way for long haul. However to curb the vast number of wasted journeys the tax needs needs a cumulative impact whereby it doubles when taking more than say 6 flights a year. This would cost me a small fortune every year but is necessary just as curbing wasteful road journeys. However the real impact should fall on private/executive travel. How about £1000 a sector and no tax allowances permitted?

    Report on 02 September 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • NS1980
    Love rating 0
    NS1980 said

    'Rip-off Britain' at it, yet again: tax anything that moves, and attempt to get on a fictitious high horse about it This country is increasingly out of touch with its citizens, the rest of Europe, and hell, even the world. I feel sorry for the likes of MK22 and AbogadoNZ, and their delusions of a greener world thanks to APD-hikes! As mentioned by numerous others, it's high time for M.Ps. and civil-servants to experience major cuts in their perks - I'm just sick of funding these goons.

    Report on 02 September 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • pam calvert
    Love rating 0
    pam calvert said

    I am afraid I do not agree with AbogadoNZ..I am a pensioner and try and save up to see my daughter and her family every two years. As I am a very very senior citizen, my travel

    insurance is reaching the sky....so to have to pay this additional air tax can prove to be

    the nail in the coffin. The Government can save in so many ways closer to "home" but

    of course the MP's feel they are entitled to whatever they get and MORE...they could

    not possibly pay more for the ordinary necessities in life like everyone else. ..like NS1980 says

    Report on 02 September 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • LaurenceSt
    Love rating 3
    LaurenceSt said

    @electricblue: I think you should read up on the STERN report http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http:/www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/sternreview_index.htm I agree that animals are generating part of the CO2 in the atmosphere, however, they don't run on fossil fuel, at least not as far as I know... It is not the amount of CO2 that is pumped into the air, it is the additional amount of CO2 that is pumped into the air, which is mainly due to combustion of fossil fuel. Aircarft are pretty good at doing that. That we have to go to China on a regular basis, well... Give me a large well educated (quite a few of them in the western world) workforce, willing to work for a couple of pounds a day, not hindered by environmental constraints (I think the pea soup fog was here not so long ago, they closed in Beijing quite a few factories during the Olympic games four years ago to clean the air) and I can build up an economy that is growing like no tomorrow. Unfortunately, there won’t be a tomorrow if we continue the way we are going at the moment; the evidence is all around us, if we are willing to look for it. I heard once on the radio ” I want my fish and chips on a Friday ” A bit difficult if there is no fish left to eat… By the way... Sir Nicholas Stern was the Head of the Government Economic Service, not an environmetalist.

    Report on 02 September 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • electricblue
    Love rating 643
    electricblue said

    METHANE is the issue with animals, NOT CO2. Aircraft don't have to be powered by fossil fuels, fuels made from plant oils are already being tested. I don't know who is going to China, I only visit California in the USA where my products are made. If I carry on building up sales in Europe, I can start to manufacture in the UK. I don't need lectures on viable manufacturing in First World countries, I've manufactured millions of pounds worth of small electronic products in the UK when competitors were Chinese and I can still beat them on price and quality.

    Report on 02 September 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • LaurenceSt
    Love rating 3
    LaurenceSt said

    @Electricblue: If you are still producing in the USA and/or the U.K. I must congratulate you with your production facilities. Worked in the electronics industry for most of my life, I understand your frustration. Also understood with the methane issue, this is correct. Methane has approx. 400 times the greenhouse gas emission coefficient comparing with CO2. It mitigates partly around the original statement, however, still this methane is still part of the natural carbon cycle. Once the vast steppes of Northern America were covered with bison. I suppose they farted a lot also. They’re gone now…. Although the density of animals per square kilometre planet is higher now, but still… Regarding bio fuels, I will try to be more precise this time: The first generation bio fuels have also major environmental impact. If you’re interested, I could send you some papers on this impact. There is a lot of work undertaken currently on anaerobe digestion, however, as far as I know, not commercially viable. Does not say that the processes behind it are not working; only that fossil fuel is cheaper. The end question is: is there enough to cover the modern energy needs of all the people on this planet. If you are aware of one, in my opinion excellent book, “Without the hot air” from David McKay ( http://www.withouthotair.com/ ) that shows the problem we’re all facing.

    Report on 02 September 2012  |  Love thisLove  1 love
  • electricblue
    Love rating 643
    electricblue said

    @LaurenceSt

    I respect your scientific arguments but my points regarding cattle are in the here and now of the options we have as regards our modern lifestyles in that we choose to eat beef, indeed reared meat, in huge volumes and it is a removable factor which is influencing climate change more than aviation. I don't know how many Bison there were a couple of thousand years ago, but they were part of the natural carbon cycle which has been influencing climate change throughout the millennia. Nuclear power and hydrogen fuel cells are a viable and very easily implemented answer if we have the will and solar powered turbines could similarly be covering the deserts of North Africa or Mexico and supplying electricity to the whole world, efficiently and reliably but, as ever, politics, corruption and war-mongering gets in the way of global progress.

    Report on 02 September 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • LaurenceSt
    Love rating 3
    LaurenceSt said

    @Electricblue:

    Not much to add. The choices we make will define if we will be able to thrive on this planet or not. At the moment I don't see the future rosy, the clearing of natural resources is happening at an incredible pace. Waste of using these natural resources is creating havoc on the whole planet. As there are individuals, companies and/or industries protective of their status quo, it will be difficult to change the direction we’re moving. Educate the masses; creating a more equal society (is possible, it works in Sweden…) is the first step to enable this change. Hammering home that continuing economic growth is a myth. If everybody is conscious of the impact that we have by making our choices, e.g. from eating a pound of meat each day, getting (fresh) food from the other end of the world, flying to wherever for business or holiday, to putting another child on this world, we as we think the only one conscious species of this planet might want to look for solutions. Airport tax might than not be necessary, because of the understanding of the impact the amount of flights is a lot less. Agreed: a large solar plant in the desert could provide quite a lot of power (hydrogen fuel cells is a converter, not an energy source, sorry…) however, if there is some trouble in those countries, guess what the first target is going to be. Political will is lacking to make this world a better place and arms trade is a good source of income. It is very profitable to work in an industry that you know your end product is intended to (get) destroy(ed), so you can keep up the supply. That there are some humans destroyed in the process.. just a detail.

    And coming back to the manufacturing of semiconductors not on the photo emission side, but on the photo collection side in the far east: German’s largest manufacturer of PV is currently taken over by a company in, I think, Korea. You can say much about the Germans, but there are very efficient. But even they could not cope with the competition from the far east. So again: uneven playing fields due to different environmental factors lead to a take over from a top notch company. Hence I really appreciate your effort to keep local produce.

    P.S. The argument about the cattle: I don't know the percentage increase over the last 250 years of animals on this planet and the resulting methane increase. However, there is a substantial amount of evidence between the CO2 emmision (from glacier cores) and the correlation to this on the global temperature. Talking of a methane thread: once the permafrost of the toundra stops, the amount of methane released from that could tip the atmosphere. It is not looking good...

    Report on 03 September 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • douglasbuchanan
    Love rating 9
    douglasbuchanan said

    By all means stop APD but replace it with fuel duty. there has to be a user payback for the environmental effects of flying. I say this as a regular flyer who has invested in wind farms to compensate for my CO2 emissions.

    Douglas Buchanan

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  • yocoxy
    Love rating 132
    yocoxy said

    Putting large amounts of people in one full plane rather than having them all drive from London to Manchester seems to me to be the most efficient option. However, to do that as a return trip the passenger is taxed twice for taking off from the UK each time.

    There's a lot of hot air on here implying that the Government taxes for fun. That was pretty much the case under the last socialist crowd but if we can keep the Tories in power, as they shake off the Liberal handcuffs we'll see taxes (and spending) come down. Then I guess everyone will be screaming about the evil politicians making spending cuts..

    Report on 07 September 2012  |  Love thisLove  1 love
  • Abigail Thornton
    Love rating 11
    Abigail Thornton said

    I'm just waiting for them to introduce a Bus Passenger Duty: "Two stops love? That'll be £1.20 plus a fiver for the BPD."

    The problem with APD now is that it has created an unlevel playing-field which is putting the UK at a competitive disadvantage. This serves to exacerbate the problems of a lack of capacity. Put simply, if the UK is more difficult and more expensive to fly to, fewer businesses and tourists will come here.

    There has been no independent analysis of the wider economic impacts of APD, yet the government is choosing to up it when they are supposedly trying to get the economy going again.

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  • HappyHacker
    Love rating 18
    HappyHacker said

    Living north of Birmingham it is easier, cheaper and much more convenient for me to fly to the continent and onwards elsewhere which means I can avoid Heathrow and the tax on the onward journey. Not that I do any flying these days, Gordon's tax on pensions coupled with the greed of the finance sector saw to that.

    The problem with bio fuels is that they are pushing up the price of our food as valuable agricultural land and water is used to grow them, apart from the deforestation to generate land to grow them.

    As long as we want meat and milk we will have to suffer from the by-products (Methane) but I believe developments are taking place in animal genetics which may reduce the amount of methane they produce. As developing countries change their diets we may all find food becoming more much expensive as we compete on a global scale to buy it.

    If we stop importing flowers from Kenya by plane what happens to the farmers producing those flowers?

    Getting rid of the tax is easy but solving all the other problems is going to be much more difficult.

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  • Mark-W
    Love rating 0
    Mark-W said

    LaurenceSt "P.S. The argument about the cattle: I don't know the percentage increase over the last 250 years of animals on this planet and the resulting methane increase."

    I'd guess at it being lower ! After all, in that timescale the majority of the bison population was wiped out in North America - that's an estimated reduction of 25-30 million VERY large ruminants ...

    Report on 07 September 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • JOHN MAXWELL
    Love rating 56
    JOHN MAXWELL said

    i find the structure of this tax strange. if i want to go to Paris for a break i can travel by road, sea, rail or air or a mixture of all four modes of transport. if there is a need to encourage me to use the most ''ecologically friendly'' method then levy a tax on the other methods. if i want to travel to South Africa to visit family and friends there is really only one practical way and that is by air so why penalise me heavily when i fly there? the politicians pontificate that this tax is to encourage us to use ''ecologically friendly'' transport when the truth is it is just another revenue raising scheme.

    Report on 07 September 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • bnick
    Love rating 6
    bnick said

    Last year I flew to New Zealand from London, this year I am going from Rome. With the money I save by not paying the extra tax I can have a mini holiday in Rome. Check it out.

    Report on 09 September 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves

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