THE GOVERNMENT’s decision to freeze Air Passenger Duty in last month’s budget has prompted relief and a certain amount of quiet satisfaction among travel industry campaigners.
The F-Air Passenger Duty For All group, founded last September by industry heavyweights including Thomson, Airtours and British Airways, carried out an intensive parliamentary lobbying campaign in the run-up to the budget.
If chancellor of the exchequer Gordon Brown had hiked up APD despite the industry’s best efforts, it would have been a serious setback for the campaign.
ABTA chief executive Ian Reynolds admitted he was pleased with the result, but cautioned against any premature self-congratulation by the industry.
“I don’t think we should be lulled into a false sense of security. We can’t be complacent about the situation,” he said.
He sees two potential dangers – that the chancellor will change his mind and increase APD at a later stage, and that infraction proceedings by the European Commission will lead to a doubling of tax on domestic flights.
The EC has hit out at the UK Government because it is only levying APD of ú10 on the outward leg of domestic flights, not on the return leg. This is regarded as discriminatory because on inter-European Union flights, duty is levied twice – once by the UK and once by the destination country.
The Government has about 15 months to either accept the EC’s case and double APD on domestic flights, or face legal proceedings against it in the European Court of Justice.
F-Air Passenger Duty For All chairman Richard Tobias said the group was lobbying all candidates for the new Scottish parliament about the infraction proceedings.
If the Government caves in to the EC, the increase in APD would damage tourism to Scotland and the Scottish economy as a whole, he argues.
Tobias said that for now, the group would continue to focus on educating politicians and other opinion formers about the damage APD is doing to the travel industry, rather than running a full-blown public awareness campaign.
Publicity may be stepped up at a later stage, but at present such an initiative is regarded as too expensive and unlikely to be as as effective as parliamentary lobbying.
n APD is currently ú10 on domestic and inter-EU flights and ú20 on trips outside the EU.