Taxing planes, not passengers

[Russethouse]

From the BBC website :

'Airlines may be in for a bit of a shock, says the BBC's business editor Robert Peston, because the Lib Dem policy of taxing planes rather than passengers has been adopted'

Reference :  http://www.libdems.org.uk/siteFiles/resources/PDF/Tax%20Plans%20-%20Briefing%20Document.pdf

Green taxation

Replacing Air Passenger Duty with a per plane tax

Air Passenger Duty (APD) is charged on passengers flying from a United Kingdom airport. By replacing the APD with an ‘Aviation Duty’ which would be levied on planes as opposed to passengers we would provide an incentive for airlines to fill seats and to discourage them from running empty flights as well as ensuring that cargo flights are brought within the scope of the duty since they currently are not covered by the existing regulations.

Introduction of a levy on domestic flights

This levy is aimed to discourage travellers from choosing air travel over land travel for routes in which the latter is readily available. In order to ensure that travel from the extremes of the country are not unfairly penalised by geographical distance the domestic duty would only apply to flights to and from destinations for which rail travel could not be provided in less than 6 hours.

 

How will this affect flights to and from France ?

[Will]

As most seem to use carriers like Ryanair, whose policy is to operate with as many bums on seats as possible, the answer would seem to be little or no effect. Though if it provides an excuse for yet another O'Leary surcharge, who knows?

[Russethouse]

 I wonder if it will make it more difficult to get new routes going, and perhaps hasten the demise of less popular routes, or shorten the season for those routes that operate only in the summer ? Those tail end days may become even less economical.