Heathrow transit passengers ‘cost taxman £500m’
14.05.08
More than a quarter of passengers at Heathrow Airport are overseas travellers who are stopping only briefly to change planes, according to figures obtained by The Times. The number of these passengers has trebled since 1991 to 18 million a year, and is expected to be double that by 2030. The newspaper says that this costs the Treasury millions in lost revenue because transfer passengers do not pay air passenger duty.
The Times that the transfer passengers spend only a few pounds each in the UK in departure lounges but are highly profitable to British Airways, which operates 40% of Heathrow’s flights, because they help to fill empty seats. But every seat sold to a foreign transfer passenger costs the Exchequer up to £80 in lost revenue. If all their seats were occupied by people either starting their journeys at Heathrow or transferring from a domestic flight, the Exchequer would gain more than £500 million a year, it adds.
The newspaper goes on to suggest that the third runway / sixth terminal at Heathrow is a done deal, and makes similar arguments to those appearing in an article in the same newspaper 10 days ago by former BA boss Bob Ayling (other than that Mr Ayling said that transfer passengers were not profitable for airlines).
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