5 Weeks To Budget – Chancellor Urged to Act on APD

February 15th, 2012

With only five weeks left until the Budget on 21st March, BATA has urged the Chancellor to scrap the planned rises in Air Passenger Duty (APD).

5 Weeks To Go – Chancellor Urged To Act On APD In Budget

With just five weeks to go until Budget Day, Simon Buck, Chief Executive of the British Air Transport Association, said:

“The Government is investing more than £120 million over the next four years to encourage millions more overseas tourists to visit Britain. This is an ambitious but important objective and vital for UK tourism and jobs, given, for example, that France attracts six times as many Chinese tourists compared to the UK.

Due to our geography, most foreign tourists visit the UK by air. But the UK has the highest taxes on flying in the world and George Osborne is planning on further increasing this tax by 8% from 1st April – over twice the rate of inflation.

This will mean UK taxes on flying will be almost ten times as high as the European average. However, several European countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands have drastically reduced or scrapped their taxes on flying because of the damage they do to their tourist industry.

With just five weeks to go before the Budget, the Chancellor needs to ditch the increases he has planned and announce a phase out of the tax if the Government is serious about boosting UK tourism.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors
 BATA is the trade body for UK-registered airlines, with members representing all sectors of the industry.
 In 2010, BATA members employed over 71,000 people, operated four-fifths of the UK commercial aircraft fleet and were responsible for some 96% of UK airline output, carrying 119 million passengers and 1 million tonnes of cargo.
 The ten BATA member airlines are: bmi, British Airways, DHL, easyJet, flybe, Jet2.com, Monarch, Thomas Cook, Thomson Airways and Virgin Atlantic.
 The Budget is being held on 21st March.
 Details of the UK‟s „GREAT‟ campaign aimed at increasing the number of tourists visiting the UK can be found at the DCMS website:
http://www.culture.gov.uk/news/media_releases/8753.aspx
and at the Visit Britain website: http://www.visitbritain.org/aboutus/marketing/marketingprogramme/index.aspx