Consultation on Aviation Duty
Thanks to the Chancellor for reminding me that there is another consultation open at the moment considering the changes to Aviation Passenger Duty. Instead of charging per passenger, the government is minded to charge by the plane load . Thus operators flying out of Heathrow with half empty planes will be penalised relative to those who manage to fill them up."This reform will take place on 1 November 2009, and has the objective of sending betterenvironmental signals, and ensuring that aviation makes a greater contribution tocovering its environmental costs, while ensuring that a fair level of revenue continues tobe raised from the sector in order to support public services."Unfortunately, from my point of view, the environmental costs in the consultation are only associated with climate change emissions and not with other environmental disbenefits of aviation (e.g. waking up Chiswick / Richmond at 4.30am each morning). The informal discussions that have lead to the proposal appear to have mainly involved organisations cosily attached to airport use (e.g the European Low Fares Airline Association and the Popular Flying Association) and not to those suffering the environmental disbenefits. I wouldn't have thought it was beyond the wit of a database to bump up the plane charge by a suitable factor depending on how unsocial the hour it landed or took off.People may also like to express their views as to whether passengers using an airport as a hub should be able to claim exemption from the duty (the government is minded to charge them/ their flights - but is welcoming discussion on the matter).I don't suspect that it will have much effect, but those who have got into the habit of responding to consultations may want to drop a line to the Treasury.The consultation is athttp://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/E/2/consult_aviation310108.pdfClosing date is 24th April
Tim Henderson ● 6345d0 Comments