Flight taxes

[Doc]

I'm sure someone has already commented on this but ...

Went to book some flights to Canada today and the one-way airfare was £60, but the taxes ...£88 each !!

Am I missing something here, did the Government just find a new way to put airlines out of business ? Or take a new transport tax - like fuel duty and spend on it on extra runways at Heathrow !?

I know that the increase is a supposed "carbon tax" but I have worked on some carbon reduction/neutralisation projects recently so know a little about this - where is this money going ?

Surely the Govnt should be showing a plan of where all this money is going too - maybe it's to make sure Mr T Blair has a nice pension??

I noticed yesterday that Asda is selling DVD players for £9 from China.... I am sure that the environmental damage from producing these cheap goods in China (where they build one new coal power station every week) and shipping them to the UK is greater than the £9 they cost.

[Jill]

I was talking to someone yesterday about the difference in the actual cost of a flight and the amount of the tax taken. It is no wonder airlines do not want to show a fully inclusive fare and like to show just what the tax take is.

It also seems the government do not really know what they want to do when you have one government minister saying we should not fly within this country or europe but use trains to reduce emissions and another saying to be competitive we need more planes coming in so lets build more runways.

We have killed off most of our manufacturing industry so most of our goods have to be shipped in. Perhaps instead of wanting 50% of school leavers to get a degree even if there is no job for them at the end we should look at restarting the manufacture of more of our own goods on a greener basis than chosen by China. We would also have a smaller carbon footprint that way.

[wrpac00]

Its just an easy way of getting taxes, it has nothing to do with saving the environment.

Air travel in the UK accounts for 1.6% of our carbon emissions, they should penalise people for leaving the lights on in a whole building overnight and weekends but that would some effort.

[steph_goodrum]

"Surely the Govnt should be showing a plan of where all this money is going too - maybe it's to make sure Mr T Blair has a nice pension??


He's worked out how to get that quite nicely....for him. Apparently be making sure he stays at No 10 till after May, when he will have completed a full 10 years, he gets an EXTRA £20,000 a year pension, more than some couple pensioners have to live on. No coincidence I don't think that he is said not to be making any announcement till June at earliest.