We must remain committed to pushing for reform of this unfair and damaging tax, says Abta chief executive Mark Tanzer
This week the ‘A Fair Tax on Flying’ campaign, of which Abta is a founding member, was privileged to pick up the ‘Outstanding Achievement’ award at this year’s Business Travel Awards.
Over the past three years the campaign group has been working tirelessly to increase awareness and understanding among political influencers and consumers of the damaging effects of Air Passenger Duty (APD), and call for a review and reduction of the tax.
The progress of the campaign to date has been in winning a wide cross-section of support from within parliament, the business community, from our own industry and from the travelling public itself.
We have worked hard to win the support of over 250 UK CEOs and 20 Chambers of Commerce, and have also encouraged 200,000 UK flyers and a further 100,000 people from overseas to write to the government asking for a review of the tax.
At Westminster, over 100 MPs have backed our calls for a macro-economic impact assessment of the duty, something also supported by the highly-respected Transport Select Committee.
Recognition by our industry peers of our progress is welcome and humbling, but the government has not yet taken the key steps we need it to, to tackle APD.
Of course, none of us know how high the tax would be today had the A Fair Tax on Flying campaign, and other vocal critics of APD, not come together to harness opposition to further significant increases.
We do know that previous governments were able to hike up the tax, year on year, without any significant political, media or consumer come back.
That is not the case today, and that is why we remain committed to pushing for reform of this unfair and damaging tax as Westminster gears up for an election in less than 18 months time.
We acknowledge that the economic conditions make an APD reduction politically sensitive, but the government is keen to champion the fact that the UK is ‘open for business’, and having the world’s highest air passenger departure tax sits at odds with that message.
Year-on-year APD rises have left the UK government looking increasingly isolated. A reduction in APD is favoured in Scotland, and in the Republic of Ireland there are plans to scrap their Air Travel Tax this April.
We remain committed to persuading the government that a reduction would benefit the economy, the industry and consumers – and we will continue to press the Treasury to undertake an economic impact assessment of APD as our next milestone on that journey.