Cheapflights has been campaigning since 2006 on behalf of the consumer against Air Passenger Duty (APD), writes John Barrington-Carver. Cheapflights even coined the phrase: “Axe the Tax!” in 2008. It’s therefore gratifying to note that an unprecedented alliance to campaign against APD has been launched today by the UK’s biggest scheduled airlines flying from the UK. The heads of easyJet, Ryanair, British Airways’ parent International Airlines Group (IAG) and Virgin Atlantic will launch a campaign against APD also under the slogan “Axe the Tax”.
Cheapflights’ CEO Hugo Burge, commenting on the news says: “It is a measure of the industry’s concern to see often conflicting airlines coming together like this to communicate a message of the utmost urgency and significance. Air Passenger Duty has the potential to cripple vitally needed growth in the UK aviation industry – it has already deterred UK travellers, who now have to pay up to £170 in addition to the cost of their flight. We should be doing all we can to support our air industry, which is good for business, consumers and our economy.
“If the Chancellor George Osborne does go ahead in his forthcoming budget statement to confirm APD will rise by a further 10 per cent next year I’m concerned to think of the additional squeeze this puts on the travel industry which is suffering like so many other areas of our economy. The message is simple – we need further investment and growth, not more taxes.”
Cheapflights’ position as a consumer champion has always been that APD is a regressive tax which proportionately hurts the lowest-paid consumers much more than the better off. It is incredible in 2011 that, politically, there seems to be an assumption that mass flying is the preserve of higher income social groups who can afford to pay more to cover air travel taxes, fees and fuel surcharges. In fact, even at the time in 2006 when we first campaigned against the tax, a CAA passenger survey of 11 main airports in England and Northern Ireland showed that 64.1 per cent were leisure passengers from socio-democratic groups C1, C2, D and E associated with families with household incomes of less than £25,000 per annum down to £7,000 per annum. Clearly, it is these groups that are already suffering and more likely to be deprived of holidays abroad in the sun if APD rises yet again.
It’s not only in the UK that the tax is deterring flying to and from the UK. Last week the European Tour Operators Association American travel body weighed in to the argument pointing out that at its current high level APD is deterring travel to the UK both by Europeans and by US families especially during the Olympics where we need to recoup investment in the Olympiad. The prospect of 10 per cent higher rates of APD will clearly not only hurt individual families, but will also ensure that overseas visitors will think twice before saddling themselves with up to hundreds of pounds in UK taxes.
The UK economy needs carrots, not sticks to get it moving – taxes, especially avoidable taxes like APD, restrict trade and the inclination to fly here as a tourist or a businessperson.
(Image: Simon_sees)
