Give Air travellers a Break!
It's not just the rich who travel by air, says Kate Hoey.
13 Jul 2011, 01:42
Air Passneger Duty: Crippling
For many in the Labour Party making it more expensive to fly has been a good thing. There is a widely held belief that it is only the rich who take holidays and therefore they can afford to pay more! The launch this week of ‘handsoffourholidays’ is designed to get our constituents to lobby us now about the injustice of APD and to try to have it at least frozen for the future.
This campaign has begun just as the Northern Ireland Select Committee published a report on the Implications for Northern Ireland of Air Passenger Duty. This report has called for the abolition of APD on all flights departing Northern Irelands airports and also abolish APD on direct flight into Northern Ireland from Great Britain.
As a member of the Select Committee I wholly support the recommendations. Northern Ireland is a special case. No other part of the UK shares a land border with a Foreign country. Business travellers,holiday makers,students and all who want to maintain family links to another part of the UK are penalised by this tax. Flying is NOT a luxury for them. It is a necessity. Just in case anyone hasn’t noticed there is something called the Irish Sea which no trains run across.
During the Christmas freeze last year many thousands of travellers – including myself were forced to take the long train journey to Stranraer and then the boat to Belfast. From leaving London it was exactly 14 hours until I reached Northern Ireland. A thoroughly miserable journey and one that no-one wants to take regularly from the South of England.The Republic of Ireland has abolished APD and so we have the ironic situation where a Northern Ireland resident pays more prohibitive taxes for travel to another part of the same country than does a resident of the Republic of Ireland.
There is one transatlantic route from Belfast – Continental Airlines to Newark. This has been a great success and led to some serious new investment from the USA. The APD from Belfast is £60 per passenger ,yet the Continental Dublin Newark flight pays no APD as the Republic has abolished them. We took evidence from the Managing Director of Continental Airlines who told how for the past year the airline has been absorbing the APD but that this could not go on indefinitely and that there is a real danger they might drop the service. Given we have just bailed out the Irish Republic with British taxpayers money it is very understandable that UK citizens in Northern Ireland feel angry.
‘Northern Ireland is a special case and needs to be recognised as such’- not my words but those of the select committee. Lets hope the Chancellor recognises that the APD is an unjust tax and one that needs to be abolished- the public certainly does.
Comments (3)
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Excellent article.
13/07/2011 12:55This is not just a problem for Northern Ireland but a major problem for the competitiveness of all our airlines. No one in their right mind would travel from an airport in the UK direct to the far east as it costs more in APD to go direct than to hop over the channel and transfer airlines in Frankfurt, Paris or Amsterdam - a completely crazy situation and I am sure that BA, Virgin Atlantic and BMI are losing passengers and revenue because of it. Kate as usual your views are spot on - are you sure you are a member of the Labour Party?
13/07/2011 15:04A good piece from a very sensible MP.
It has often annoyed me when the phrase 'unnecessary travel' is used, as there is a judgement on the part of one group as to what is or is not necessary for someone else. It might not be strictly necessary to see ones family, or take a holiday once a year, but it is certainly not the Government's place to make that decision (indirectly through the taxation of travel).
14/07/2011 10:34