AOA boss says new air tax will add £100 to long haul flights
20.11.08
Long-haul air passengers will face an extra £100 on the cost of a ticket if the Government goes ahead with plans for a new aviation duty, Ed Anderson, executive chairman of the Airport Operators Association (AOA), said.
At the AOA's annual conference this week Mr Anderson, a former chief executive at Leeds Bradford Airport, said: ‘Aviation Duty is the wrong tax at the wrong time. It will harm air freight, it will jeopardise regional air links and it will damage the UK’s competitiveness within Europe.'
‘The environmental argument which the Treasury makes for the tax is extremely weak and at a time of economic turmoil the cost is unjustifiable. What this tax means is that a family of four that has saved for a holiday to Florida, for example, will have to find another £400 from their savings.’
The AOA is concerned that next week’s pre-budget report will announce Aviation Duty as a replacement for Air Passenger Duty, which was itself doubled at the beginning of the year and currently yields £2 billion a year to the Treasury.
The AOA says the introduction of Aviation Duty will lead directly to a five percent drop in passenger demand in the first year and that the further stepped increases in the tax planned for following years will further damage the industry and penalise passengers.
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