Aviation industry criticise budget APD change
13.03.08
The Aviation industry has slammed plans by the UK government to increase the ‘green’ airlines levy by 10% in its Budget next year. Labour are planning to replace the existing per passenger air passenger duty (APD) with a single per plane tax in November 2009. And Chancellor Alistair Darling yesterday said that the amount raised from airlines would increase by 10% in the second year of the per flight tax regime to match growth in the aviation industry.
However, Jim Callaghan, head of regulatory affairs at Ryanair said: ‘I am quite sure we'll oppose it, it's not an environmental tax because it's not being spent on the environment, it's just another rip-off.' A spokesman for Virgin Atlantic added that the £3bn raised by ADP each year was ‘more than enough to cover the cost of emissions of the UK aviation industry’.
Guild of Travel Management Companies chief executive, Philip Carlisle, said the move was 'another short-sighted tax grab by government. The Treasury's press notice supporting the Budget Statement explicitly states that the purpose of this tax increase is to raise money to pay for public services.'
'We acknowledge that aviation should bear the cost of its emissions but we believe strongly that the revenue raised should fund either environmental projects or be used to develop much-needed transport infrastructure. Aviation should not be used as a means for the Chancellor to raise general revenue to help him balance the books.'
Cheapflights general manager UK, Francesca Ecsery, said the money raised should not go straight into Government coffers. She said: 'We support moves to reduce aviation’s already small global emissions footprint 2% globally set out in the Sustainable Aviation Report. However, we strongly believe the additional tax revenues should be applied to achieving the stringent 50% noise, CO2 and NO2 reduction targets set out in the report by and for the aviation industry for 2020.'
Neil Pakey, Chairman of the Airport Operators Association (and Liverpool Airport boss) said: ‘The industry has already realised some £11 billion in taxation since the inception of the APD. This rise risks damaging the UK’s economic competitiveness, and does little to encourage a reduction in aviation emissions.'
'The irony is that so far none of this 'tax' has been reinvested back into environmental improvements in the industry. We need to move towards a genuinely ‘green’ aviation duty, which would provide incentives for the aviation industry to invest further in methods of carbon reduction.’
The public consultation on the design of the new per plane duty opened on January 31 and will close on April 24.
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