You’re absolutely right about this Darren – no proof of putting the money back. It’s a double whammy – just another way of taking money from the public, but at the same time will cause more travel companies to go out of business.
You also raise a good point about the ghost flights.
I think there may (hopefully) be a backdown on this next year, as the government must realise it’s not sustainable to continually penalise holidaymakers – and cause harm to the destinations they contribute to,

Report comment

The idea the government went back on was a per-aircraft tax paid by the airlines, taking into account the environmental damage done by each aircraft (so adjusted for factors like age, seat density etc). This would have encouraged airlines to fly newer aircraft and fly them full, so it comes to much the same thing as you suggest above. Or it would’ve, if they hadn’t ditched it and increased APD instead…

Report comment

My concern is this: Any aeroplane flying along generates a lot of pollution, no matter how you tax it. The answer seems to be look at why it is flying about in the first place. Business flights – Well, here, people are travelling to boost the funds of UKPLC by earning new export orders and generally promoting us overseas – so bringing in much needed capital and hopefully, jobs.

To tax them would be wrong. Okay, so what about holidaymakers? Well, the only thing they are doing is taking UK pounds and using these to boost the income of Spain PLC or Greece PLC or anywhere else- PLC, save for here. So, there is an argument that the burden should fall on the leisure traveller, not the business traveller.

Now, leisure air travel never even existed much before the early 1960’s and even then was a rare, and expensive delight. Since then, mass travel has become such a way of life, ingrained into our psyche, that we almost view air travel – cheap air travel – as a right. That is not the case. As I keep saying, there is no “right” to cheap air travel anymore than a “right” to a cheap house or car.

So, an argument could be made that all non- fully-cost-effective flights should be abolished and those that do fly should only be at a fully sustainable price, based on, say, 75% occupancy. Of course, there would be an outcry. I do feel that everyone can talk the talk about this planet saving bit, but no-one walks the walk.

Making APD £5 more or £10 more will not save the planet – it will make no ruddy difference, neither will it, if I drive a 2 litre car or a 200 litre car. What will make a difference is not having runway 3, not having,say, a war in Iraq (with all it’s blown up oil wells) or indeed a war anywhere, not having Far Eastern countries chucking the stuff out 9 to the dozen.

But these are big steps that our leaders are too scared to make – or there is too much money involved – in the meanwhile, you and I have to have another £5 stealth tax, sorry APD, docked – or have some poxy Council checking how many bits of paper are in the wrong bin.

Report comment

I wrote something very similiar about having more options for passengers to donate for this year’s Blog Action Day. It would be so relatively easy for companies to do this and could make such an impact!

Report comment