AOA: new air take will add £100 to flight costs
19.11.08
Long-haul passengers will pay an extra £100 for the cost of a flight if the Government goes ahead with plans for a new aviation duty, Ed Anderson, executive chairman of the Airport Operators Association (AOA), said this week.
At the AOA's annual conference Mr Anderson, the 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.'
‘The environmental argument 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.’
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 for the Treasury.
The AOA says the introduction of Aviation Duty will lead directly to a 5% 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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