Virgin Atlantic urges conservative leaders to scrap further APD increases
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Posted on: November 3rd, 2009 by Neill Zerk
Virgin Atlantic, one of the world’s foremost long-haul airlines, has called upon David Cameron and other members of the Conservative Party to commit to doing away with the proposed further increases in Air Passenger Duty, if they win the elections in 2010.
Virgin Atlantic’s chief executive, Steve Ridgeway has said in a statement released by the airline that the proposed increases will hurt both the aviation industry as well as the economies of Britain and many developing countries like the Caribbean. He pointed out that many of these countries rely heavily on the tourism trade to boost their economy, and added that the increased duties, if allowed to go ahead, will also tax many Britons out of their hard-earned holiday abroad.
“We are therefore calling on the Conservatives to see sense on this issue and commit to scrapping the planned increase for 2010 if they are successful at the next election,” Ridgeway said in the statement. “Everyone knows the airline industry, along with the wider UK business community, will be severely damaged by these unjust future increases in APD.”
The statement from the airline says the levels of APD have little to do with the actual environmental impact of air services, and will in fact harm British businesses and the country’s economy, as passengers will opt to fly via third countries to avoid the taxes.
The statement also points out that the bandage system under which the taxes are determined is discriminatory against some countries—like those in the Caribbean.
As the duties are calculated according to the distance between London and the capital city of each destination country, travellers flying to new York, for example, would pay lower taxes than those flying to the Caribbean—although in fact, the actual distance in the first route is longer.
Virgin Atlantic has stressed that it supports proposals for a global carbon trading emissions scheme which involves all airlines, as proposed at this December’s Copenhagen summit.