Statement following pre-budget announcement on Air Passenger Duty

07.12.2006 Air Passenger Duty was introduced as an environment tax over six years ago – it generates nearly £1bn each year for the government, however there is no evidence of this money having been put towards protecting the environment in the past or that it will be put towards environmental mitigation measures in the future.

We take the environment very seriously and are working hard to constantly increase the efficiency of our operation – work that which we foot the bill for. Unlike all other transport industries we do not receive government subsidies and the aviation industry pays for its own infrastructure. We will now have significant additional costs because of this tax, due to the this tax increase being applied to all bookings travelling on or after 1 February next year; this includes bookings that have already been made – therefore due to contractual reasons the travel industry will have to pay a considerable amount of this additional tax on behalf of its customers.

The increase in tax puts UK aviation at a disadvantage compared to the rest of the world – increasingly the tax is a blunt measure to impact on aviation – a more effective and fair measure would be for aviation to join the emissions trading scheme. It also does not take into account the significant economic benefits of tourism for many of the poorest countries of the world.