Attendees at the GTMC's Autumn Conference held yesterday, 1 November 2010, were scathing in their criticism of Air Passenger Duty (APD) on the day it rose once again.
Richard Tams, head of sales and marketing UK and Ireland at British Airways said that the government’s own figures showed that it estimated raising £2.3 billion from the tax, and hoped for this to rise to £3.8 billion.
Tams pointed out that unless the number of flights was going to increase by 65%, those figures meant further tax increases would soon be on the way.
Discussing the matter on a panel convened under the title “Air Matters?”, Clive Wrattan, Etihad’s country manager said that he saw the tax doing damage to the UK’s aviation industry.
Wrattan was most concerned at the lack of urgency being displayed on the tax by the coalition government.
In earlier comments to the conference the Rt Hon Norman Baker MP, Under Secretary of State for Transport, had said that the Transport Minister Theresa Villiers was looking into the matter but that no decisions had yet been made.
Tony Berry, Industry and Fare Distribution Director at HRG called for more unified action and lobbying and action between all members of the travel industry, including the GTMC, ABTA, Visit Britain and all stakeholders.
There was a discussion as to why previous lobbying attempts had failed, with some on the panel, most notably Richard Tams, saying that the split between opponents over the correct way of applying the tax – per passenger as is presently done for APD or the proposed Per Plane Duty (PPD) supported by airlines such as Easyjet – allowed successive governments to dismiss the opposition as divided.
On a more positive note, however, the withdrawal of Amsterdam’s Schiphol’s airport tax in the face of a 10% drop in passengers, which clearly damaged the economy, was at least a test case that could be drawn to the attention of the coalition government.
Suggestions from the floor of the conference included emphasising the harm APD would do not only to the suppy chain for aviation in the UK, but on inward-bound tourism. A member from ABTA also suggested members of the GTMC should become involved with Flying Matters.
www.GTMC.org www.flyingmatters.org.uk
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