Flightblogging.com

Whatever has gone wrong with Coventry Airport’s attempts to open up a new terminal, and offer flights for upto 2 million passengers each year, there is no point in trying to find a scapegoat. Considering that the airport’s current owners took over the lease from TUI on the apparent understanding that the second public inquiry would be a formality, this ruling must come as a tremendous blow to them.

Infact, Coventry Airport’s managing director, Chris Orphanou, has not exactly minced his words when commenting on the decision to the Coventry Evening Telegraph:

“I’m not from Coventry, but had I been from Coventry, I would probably have been creating World War Three today”

Well, I’m not sure if I’d say I’m from Coventry either - I happen to live here, but I’d consider myself to be “from” that other town just up the road - Leamington Spa, or Royal Leamington Spa to the snobs out there. So having seen this argument from both sides of the fence, I think that this is the crux of the problem.

Poor Coventry is surrounded by affluent Warwickshire, which will only deal on its own terms - just look at the history of Warwick University, for more details on this. Meanwhile, just up the road is Birmingham, which is still trying to cling to its claim of being Britain’s second city. Sorry Brum, but in terms of culture, sport, and of course transport, you lost that one to Manchester many moons ago. So time for a quote from my favourite band, with whom I share my name, and who also happen to eminate from Britain’s real second city:

“Stop stop talking about who’s to blame, when all that counts is how to change.” - James, Born of Frustration.

The decision has been made, and we have to live with it. For anyone directly employed at the airport, or who’s business depends on the airport, this is a hard blow to take, especially as we approach what should be a busy summer, not to mention the excitement of the new flights to Poland.

I have lived in this area for 29 of the 31 years I have spent on this planet. Prior to moving to Coventry, I lived in north Leamington. I also took a substantial interest in green issues when at university, so I think I can see this debate from most angles. 

I have repeatedly pointed out that Coventry Airport needs an intelligent surface access (ie ground transport) strategy. They need to innovate, and to turn this obvious weakness into a strength - just laying on a couple of buses doesn’t do this. They need to look at the shared taxi system used by Chiltern Trains at Bicester North (where parking constraints are a real problem), or they need to investigate whether or not Thomsonfly’s customer database can be used to offer this service as an add-on (hey, potential revenue earner here too).

I don’t buy the argument that mitigation wasn’t sufficient. If this was the case, surely the inspectorate could have imposed greater restrictions on the airport. This is to be expected anyway, as environmental concerns continue to grab more headlines. Let’s not forget that 1 million departures each year would have sent £10m to the treasury, yet nimbys tend to go strangely silent when asked if some of that income should go towards mitigation schemes.

Noise and air pollution will be a problem at any airport, but it doesn’t take a genius to glance at a map, and see that the residential areas around Birmingham Airport are a great deal more dense than those around Coventry.

I still believe that this difference in noise footprint more than equates for any alleged lack of public transport at Coventry Airport - especially as most of Coventry’s passengers are on leisure trips anyway. Let us not forget that, for all Birmingham’s talk about having a station on site, 4 out of 5 people using it still arrive there by private transport or taxi. As with many other UK airport’s, Birmingham’s proximity to the main London to Birmingham railway line can be put down to an accident of geography, rather than any deliberate foresight. However much I would like to see more people getting to and from airports by public transport, this should never be a reason for an airport to be refused the opportunity to expand.

So I think that the environmental reasons for the refusal of planning permission can and should be challenged, however much of a whipping stick the media like to beat the aviation industry with. Once those are given a fair weighting, I think that the case for moderate, controlled and mitigated expansion at Coventry - which is all anyone has ever asked for - is entirely reasonable, and consistent with the needs of the Midlands as a whole.

A couple of years back, I devoted a huge amount of time to defending Coventry Airport’s plans to launch more flights, and to cater for upto 2 million passengers per year.

Despite attempts by some of the anti-airport campaigners to suggest that I was doing this because I had commercial interests to protect, my reasons for getting involved boiled down to a simple belief that the airport’s plans were reasonable and moderate, and that they should be given full support.

It just happens to be that Flightmapping.com is based in Coventry, and that much of the opposition to the airport’s expansion plans was eminating from within the chattering classes of Warwick District, within which I had lived for many years. I have to give it to Warwick District Council, they are a tough bunch - much as though I completely disagree with the stance they have taken, their viewpoint has been vindicated - at least for now.

How different it might have been if the airport was in the boundaries of Coventry? I also can’t help wondering if the decision would have been the same, had TUI still maintained ownershop of the lease on the Coventry Airport site.

At some stage in the not to distant future, I will need to thoroughly digest the report, but I am still sensing that the grounds for refusal ultimately boil down to the presence of Birmingham Airport, rather than the inherent strength of local opposition. I expect that this is a combination of the pre-existence of Birmingham (for mainstream passenger purposes), the public transport provision that Birmingham offers, and its inherent political clout, rather than any individual reason - or grand conspiracy, as some commentators might suggest. I’ll leave the conspiracy theories to the government’s White Paper proposals to build a new airport near Rugby - an obvious political hoax if ever there was one!

Despite the obvious blow that the airport operators have just been dealt, this is far from over - there are appeals, and possible alternative submissions to think about. Meanwhile, the current terminal continues to operate, and to do so with planning permission.

I hope that the key political voices in Coventry will make their opinions known in the right places - shame on Jim Cunningham for caving in to the nimby arguments.

If a local shop of 70 years’ standing was refused planning permission to open a second checkout desk, on the grounds that there was a large supermarket with 12 desks, and plans to expand to 36 desks, just 120 yards away, there would be total outrage, and cries of bullying on the part of said supermarket. Yet shops also cause disturbances, albeit on a different scale. And don’t get me started on the nuisance going on outside a certain local pub last night!

I hope that people will sense a similar outrage over what has happened here, and that they will see through the political points scoring which is so easy to do these days in the name of the environment, when it is perfectly clear that there are other, far greater, vested interests at play.

The debate over aviation’s contribution to climate change and other environmental problems was well under way when I started Flightmapping.com almost 5 years ago. I’ve never been one to pretend that this isn’t a serious issue, but it does appear that most industry bigwigs are finally waking up to this.

Earlier this month, Leo Van Wijk, who is vice-chairman of Air France-KLM, the world’s biggest airline by turnover, lashed out at the annual IATA conference, claiming that the industry was doing too little, too late.

I have always felt that the cost of flights should cover the so-called “externalities” of pollution, and that this can still be done whilst making sure that aviation also make a reasonable contribution to the exchequer. Prior to December’s doubling in Air Passenger Duty, I would have argued that there was still room for these costs to be accounted for, and that they should be done in a manner which was proportional to the pollution caused, or at least to the cost of the ticket.

Then Gordon Brown decides to not only double APD overnight, but to apply the increase to tickets which had already been purchased. So where was the public outcry over this extremely vindictive move? There wasn’t any - all we got was the green lobby telling us that this increase wasn’t enough. Judging by the carbon offset costs produced by DEFRA, and endorsed by websites like Climate Care, which puts the climate cost of a domestic flight at less than £1, this increase was more than enough, even if the government itself has already admitted that APD is a very “blunt instrument”.

My biggest gripe with the £10 APD is that it is levied in both directions on domestic sectors. Try telling a family of four living in Belfast that they should take a weekend break in (already expensive) London (£80 goes to Gordon), when they could drive down to tax-free Dublin, and fly three times further to Malaga, paying a mere €5.78 each for the return journey.

Unlike many within the aviation industry, I don’t think that global warming is a hoax, but I do like to try and understand as many angles to the argument as possible. One thing I am sure of is that there are more effective ways of reducing CO2 output than going after aviation.

We might be an easy target, but how many politicians realise that they can only ever exercise limited control over an industry that is inherently international. Perhaps that’s why we’ve suffered here in Coventry, but that’s for another debate.

If even a fraction of the extra billions raised from APD was diverted towards investing in better facilities for walking and cycling - including safe routes to school, then we’d all be better off. For all the unproven talk about radiative forcing at higher altitudes, vehicle emmissions at ground level are indisputable, and one way to limit these is to make the walking environment as safe and attractive as possible.

That’s what the Dutch and Swiss do, and it is no wonder that their levels of obesity are a fraction of ours. Unfortunately, both countries tend to operate under a much gentler form of democracy, whereas we have to sex everything up to keep the tabloids busy.

Sex up self powered transport anyone? Somehow the walk-a-mile-a-day club is never going to be as salacious as bashing the mile high club.

I have just been pointed towards a long overdue website, which aims to provide information to counteract many of the false claims put forward by the environmental lobby, with regards to the pollution caused by flying.

The site is called enviro.aero.

As with any such websites, there are the usual caveats, but there is no longer any excuse for burying heads in the sand. Of course, this website is going to be biased towards protecting the aviation industry, but as the following article shows, the BBC isn’t exactly that neutral either!

Now if anyone doubts this assertion, lets take a look at the BBC’s coverage, or lack of it, of Easyjet’s recent announcement about their Ecojet initiative:

“Sorry

There are no results for “ecojet” on the BBC website.”

http://search.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?tab=all&q=ecojet&scope=all

This is hardly surprising really - I was at the press conference, and they do not appear to have even bothered to send a reporter - even if the venue was just a short walk (sorry, all expenses paid taxi ride) from BBC HQ.

Looking back over the last few weeks, it really has been silly season from various so-called environmental organisations, who have each taken their turn at launching evermore ludicrous potshots at the aviation industry. One of the most bizarre episodes involved Greenpeace campaigners turning up to protest at British Airways reinstating their flights from London Gatwick to Newquay. It is not that I’ve got anything against environmental organisations protesting about short-haul flights - they have some valid points to make - it is just that they really do seem to pick on the most ridiculous targets.
Of all the major airlines operating flights from UK airports, why target BA? Surely these groups would want target the airlines which are growing fastest, and which they see as the biggest threat - Easyjet and Ryanair? They’ve levelled plenty of criticism about the growth of no-frills flights before, but I can’t help wondering that the real reason for targeting BA is that they are a soft touch. The dumbest of all anti-aviation groups, the aptly named (no, I don’t do irony) Planestupid, did try to have a go at Easyjet, but turned up at the Easy-brand headquarters in Camden, instead of the Easyjet head offices, which are situated in a bright orange hangar at Luton airport!   Perhaps Planestupid are one of the few organisations out there who practice what they preach, because anyone who has ever taken flights from Luton knows that Easyjet’s head office is impossible to miss! Of course, they wouldn’t dare mess with Ryanair – not only are the Irish airline notoriously litigious, but their tough talking (and highly intelligent) chief executive, Michael O’Leary, would tear them to shreds. 
So why even bother to add more fuel to the fire, and keep commenting on this topic? Simply because, in broad terms, I do actually agree with the principle – short-haul flights should be replaced by quality, high-speed train services. However, as always, the do-gooders have got plenty of sticks with which to beat us, but they are pretty lousy at coming up with carrots. So, looking over some recent UK domestic air route changes, I’ll do a bit of their homework for them. Below are just a few examples of routes which have been cancelled, or significantly cut back, in the face of improved competition from high-speed train services or more suitable airline rivals:
The end of BA Connect - whether British Airways continue to operate flights to Newquay or not, the least that groups like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth could have done is given them a huge pat on the back for finally bringing the axe down on their heavily unprofitable, and equally wasteful, BA Connect regional airline. Despite half-hearted attempts to rebrand this business and launch it as a low fares operation, BA Connect was always going to be a costly company to run, and one which relied on heavily inefficient aircraft. Our understanding is that there were several BA Connect routes which regularly operated with single figure passenger loads. Those routes which are still viable, will continue to be operated by Flybe, leading to some inevitable rationalisation in the market, especially on numerous city pairs where the airline duo competed head-to-head with each other. This means that there are now huge efficiency improvements on flights between Scotland and major regional hubs such as Birmingham and Manchester.
Axing of British Airways Gatwick to Newcastle flights; reduction in frequency on British Airways Gatwick to Glasgow flights - in both of these cases, British Airways might be giving way to no frills competition in the form of Jet2 and Easyjet respectively, but it is generally accepted that no-frills airlines offer greater efficiencies than their traditional counterparts, in terms of both financial costs and fuel burn per passenger. Additionally, Eastern Airways were unable to make their flights from London City to Newcastle work. Although we always felt that this particular route looked ambitious, we would expect that the vast majority of sensible business travellers between London and the Northeast will continue to opt to take the train.
Manchester to Edinburgh (Jet2) - although this route continues to be operated by Flybe (who have inherited the route from BA Connect) and BMI Regional, we suspect that this flight is simply too short to be viable for no-frills operation.
Liverpool to Edinburgh and Glasgow (Flybe); Belfast City - Flybe’s attempt to muscle in to Liverpool has to be one of the most spectacular failures in low-cost airline base set-ups. Although there was no other competition on flights from Liverpool to Scotland at the time (Ryanair have subsequently launched cheap flights from Liverpool to Inverness and Aberdeen), there just does not appear to have been enough demand to make flights from Liverpool to the Scottish central belt work. It might look surprising that these routes were a failure, considering that Manchester can still support competition to both cities between Flybe and BMI regional, but this is significantly helped by transfer traffic, which is not relevant to Liverpool. Flybe’s failure on the Liverpool to Belfast City route was a little bit more surprising to us, but it seems that they just couldn’t compete against Easyjet’s well established flights to Belfast International.
Liverpool to London City (VLM) — reduced frequency. This service initially operated five times a day when the route started, but now VLM operate just three daily flights between Liverpool and London City. During the time that these flights of operated, the West Coast mainline has undergone significant upgrades. However, VLM have recently increased their frequency on their London City to Manchester flights, bucking the general trend towards rail. This suggests to us that rail travel has a significant advantage over flights into other London airports - especially Stansted and Manchester, but that for the time being at least, VLM can capitalise on being able to get people in and out of the Docklands financial district very quickly. As the West Coast mainline undergoes further improvements, and as domestic flights continue to be squeezed by having to pay two sets of air passenger duty, we wouldn’t be surprised to see VLM’s Liverpool flights getting dropped within the next 12 months.
Birmingham to Newquay (BmiBaby) – there isn’t much difference in the drivetime between Newquay and either Birmingham or London, but BmiBaby’s route to the Cornish surfing Mecca just did not seem to work from Birmingham. There might well have been the operational reasons behind this decision, but it was interesting to see that BmiBaby’s Manchester to Newquay flights (Manchester is another two hours up the road) have survived. We think this might be an interesting case in point about the viability of shorter domestic hops - even if the road journey takes a bit longer, people still prefer the convenience of driving in their own car. This is less of an issue for more business dominated routes, where speed, and the ability to work during the journey, offer advantages which outweigh the convenience of the car.

We hope that the above examples show that market forces can and will have a significant effect on people’s choice of transport mode, regardless of any input from the environmental lobby. As each case has shown, the reasons for success or failure of any particular flight route can be extremely varied, and even these are subject to a liberal dose of our own speculation. However, what they highlight is that the aviation industry, in the UK at least, is extremely Darwinian in its weeding out of the poor performers. Perhaps this stems down to the ultimate paradox of air travel - because flying is an inherently resource intensive method of transport, companies have to be extremely efficient in their usage of fuel, and other assets like aircraft, in order to compete and survive. Adding additional environmental costs on to short-haul flights might tip the balance against inefficient routes even further, although this might also endanger some economically vital regional routes. 
There has been scant debate so far about where additional taxes on flights should be allocated, but any fiscally responsible government should take some very deep breaths before handing this cash straight over to the railway industry. When the national flag carrying airline (British Airways) withdrew from its base operations from every UK city apart from London, there was no big outcry - the move was accepted as a rational and necessary cost-cutting effort. Now what would happen if the same efficiency measures were proposed on the rail network? Mention of Dr Beeching (the notorious BR chairman who closed huge swathes of the UK railway network in the 1960s) will send shivers down the spine of any avid train proponent, but if we are going to be serious about making long-distance train travel an economically and environmentally viable alternative to flying, isn’t it time the rail industry borrowed a few efficiency measures from the no-frills airlines?

Last week, I got an early leak of a press release from the IPPR (Institute of Public Policy Research), suggesting that flights should now carry environmental health warnings in a similar manner to cigarettes.

The IPPR has singled out aviation, and called for measures including:

• Large, and clearly visible warnings, with statements such as “flying causes climate change”.
• Estimates of average emissions for each flight taken.
• A comparative emissions chart between flying and making the same journey by rail or coach.

The first measure is barely worthy of comment, such is its crass stupidity. The second measure looks reasonable enough - airlines such as Flybe have called for an environmental labelling scheme which would make it mandatory for all airlines to provide this information, in much the same way as household appliances have energy star ratings, and car manufacturers must declare their carbon dioxide emissions and fuel consumption.

The third measure might help consumers to make informed decisions, although we would of course argue that any such comparison must also include the subsidies handed out to the alternative rail journey, so passengers can weigh up the economic and the environmental externalities of the journey.

We continue to be disappointed, although not surprised, that none of these environmental organisations or supposedly intelligent think tanks are calling for similar emissions data to be made available for rail journeys. Whilst we fully accept that rail journeys are generally less polluting than flights, the margins are nothing like as great as claimed, once average occupancy levels and power consumption methods are taken into account.

Recent suggestions that we are a nation addicted on so-called binge flying are easy political soundbites, but has anyone checked growth rates on all other modes of transport, particularly on the roads and railways?

I challenge the Institute for Public Policy Research to run a survey of airline passengers checking in for flights at Stansted, or any other London airport of their choice. I guarantee that every single one of them will say that they enjoy the freedoms which flying brings them. I would also wager that the vast majority would be perfectly happy to accept the principle that the airline industry should pay a fair price for any environmental damage it causes.

Of course, the environmentalists will then argue that if people want to continue travelling, they should do so by less environmentally damaging means, such as by high-speed train. When the rail network is up to scratch, and when we have enough renewable energy to make inter-city train travel’s astonishingly low occupancy rates an irrelevancy, then we would unequivocally support this argument. However, passengers really don’t need the eco-puritans to tell them this - as the figures for modal splits between air and rail between London and Manchester (formerly 40% by rail and 60% by air, now the other way round) since the West Coast mainline upgrade, attest. 

More worrying still is the continued insistence amongst ill informed organisations like the IPPR that aviation taxes should be “raised to cover the environmental damage caused by flying”. At present, widely published figures are available for the cost of carbon dioxide offset for flights, and if the IPPR had bothered to check the references they quote, they would see that these typically range from just 39p (air passenger duty is £10) for a London to Amsterdam flight, up to £23 for a long-haul flight from London to Auckland in New Zealand (air passenger duty £40).

In most cases, the carbon dioxide cost is significantly lower than the air passenger duty, which even the government themselves have acknowledged is an incredibly blunt way to tackle the emissions caused by aviation. If there are additional costs which need to be factored in, such as noise disturbance, then let’s have a full debate over the respective figures. We would also find it far more constructive if the green brigade came up with some sensible proposals for how they would like any extra taxes to be spent, instead of just calling for them to be increased further.

The IPPR then goes on to call for the UK government to work with other EU member states to better integrate the “fragmented” European rail network. Last time we checked, we found that the European network is pretty well integrated - trains such as the Thalys run smoothly between France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, using a combination of dedicated high speed and standard rail thoroughfares. If any rail network needs integration, then we need to look much closer to home. At least we will finally see a major step forward when the new St Pancras International Eurostar station opens in November.

Further follow up:

• Original Flightmapping news article
• Crosswalk.com
• John Birch Society (Flightmapping does not agree with the JBS on just about every other issue!)

How disguting, do Ryanair have no shame?

As if they don’t have enough controversy on their hands, Ryanair now want to charge more for overweight passengers who fly with them. 

Follow Up (8th May)

Well it seems like the story has been picked up in a few forums over the bank holiday weekend. No idea why they’re only getting it now, but I guess that’s the nature of search engines.

So, how many a serious point is said in jest?

• Yorkshire Divers
• Snowboard Club UK

One nice thing about a blog is that I don’t have to do all the research myself. If we publish a news article, we do at least need to make reasonable efforts to check that what is being said is correct.

So, these are some questions I’ve never got round to answering, but I’d love to see some comments:

1. How many years are spent listening to in flight safety announcements - and how many lives have actually been saved due to people taking note of what is being said?
2. How many lifetimes have been spent manufacturing life jackets for usage onboard aircraft? How many times has an aircraft landed on water, with fuselage intact (i.e. there are survivors), and how many lives have actually been saved by these jackets?
3. How much fuel is burnt each year carrying all of these life jackets over deserts and mountain ranges?
4. Have the new security measures introduced last year really prevented any further terrorist atrocities? And how many years do we Brits now spend queueing at airports, because lazy airport managers can use terrorism as an excuse for not bothering to recruit enough staff?
5. How many fatalities are there on the roads each year, due to accidents involving people who are fearful or either flying, or taking the train?
6. How many people will die from obesity related illnesses, because their parents ferried them 500yards to school, because they were concernd about a bogeyman hiding in the bushes?
7. How many villagers are there who have hurtled in their 4×4’s through country lanes, just so they can’t be late to that public meeting about their local airport expansion, where they will hear endless tirades about planes falling out of the sky, and spraying their washing with unburnt kerosine?

Technorati Profile

There have been plenty of strong words said this week about the ongoing negotiations between the EU and the USA about open skies agreements, but one airline which seems to have been relatively quiet on this issue is Virgin Atlantic.

It is well known that however much Richard Branson loves to take on his competitors, Virgin still have quite a nice little arrangement at Heathrow, which prevents rivals like BMI, and European airlines like Lufthansa, from operating competing flights against them to the USA.

Meanwhile, preparations are well under way for the start of Virgin America, which is set to launch no frills flights from San Francisco this summer. Airline ownership is a big part of the open skies negotiations, but it looks like Virgin have found enough local partners to enable them to get started under the current regulations.

I will start the Flightmapping.com blog on the hotly debated topic of the recent doubling in Air Passenger Duty (APD). 

Nothing wrong with “polluter pays” principle

Before I launch into my tirade against Gordon Brown, and his hugely ill judged tax raid, I should start by saying that I have absolutely no objection whatsoever to the “polluter pays” principle, or to the broad notion that the aviation industry needs to do more to clean up its act. Furthermore, I might derive most of my income from the sale of flight tickets, but I don’t think that my involvement in this industry should give me any reason to bury my head in the sand on what is clearly a very important topic. And, just for the record, I do think more should be done to encourage a modal shift from short-haul flights to high speed trains, and often travel by train up to Scotland, when I could perfectly easily fly.

So, why do I feel so strongly about the recent increase in APD, when all that Gordon Brown has done is restore this tax back to the levels that it was at when Labour came into power in 1997? Considering how many other stealth taxes have been introduced, wasn’t it always an anomaly that flights were one of the few things which had effectively been de-stealthed?

Bad application

Gordon Brown’s first major folly was to announce a rise in APD, and then to apply the extra charge immediately to all flights from February 1, including those which had already been booked. There is no plausible explanation for the necessity to apply the APD rise with such haste.  It worryingly smacks of extreme government desperation for extra cash, and it has also created a totally unnecessary sense of ill feeling amongst both airlines and passengers, who are having to stump up extra money for flights they reasonably believed had already been paid for. To borrow an analogy from Easyjet’s managing director Andrew Harrison, this state sponsored thievery is no different to the manager of the local off-licence calling round to your house, and demanding £1 for every bottle of beer or wine you have bought from them, but have not drunk yet.

Bad timing

Environmentalists have often been heavily critical of airlines for not wanting to address the environmental impacts of their emissions, and for a long time, these criticisms were entirely valid.  However, over the last few months, many of the UK’s major airlines have started to respond to public opinion, and to work together on a number of different schemes to offset their carbon emissions. Some tour operators had also been looking at voluntary carbon offset payments to add to their booking processes, whereas the no-frills airlines had tended to concentrate on extolling the virtues of their ultramodern, highly efficient fleets.

Whilst it might be perfectly true to say that airlines have been dragging their feet on these issues, discussions between them and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) were clearly very well advanced at the time that the APD increases were announced, but Brown’s short sighted idiocy has totally scuppered these delicate negotiations. The airlines have now called off the talks with DEFRA, and we are left with the worst possible scenario – passengers being rinsed of huge amounts of cash, little of which will go on green causes, alongside bitter airlines who feel they are paying more than enough for any environmental damage they cause.  

Bad reasoning

The typical carbon cost of a one way European flight is in the region of £1 (if we go by DEFRA’s own figures). With APD now set at £10 on European flights (giving a 1000% markup to the government), it should be perfectly clear that the recent tax increases have been brought in for the sake of swelling government coffers, with the environment being used as a convenient smokescreen.

By all means, it is perfectly reasonable that a largely discretionary commodity like airline tickets should make a fair contribution to the general Exchequer, but airline passengers should not be deceived in any way shape or form into thinking that this is done for environmental reasons.

Some anti-aviation campaigners have often wondered why flight tickets are not subject to VAT.  Whilst much of the reasoning for this goes down to the international nature of most air travel, there have been some moves within Germany to levy VAT on domestic flights. Whilst this sounds like a perfectly plausible suggestion, environmentalists conveniently forget that domestic flights are already disproportionately taxed, and APD is applied on the return journey as well as the outbound flight. Airlines will also readily point out that comparisons between the cost of aviation fuel, which bears no duty, and the petrol or diesel used in cars, are not entirely fair, considering that no other form of public transport pays fuel duty either.

Bad for the environment

The basic environmental theory behind increasing APD is that by making flights more expensive, people will be less inclined to travel by air, and that the “rapacious” demand for cheap flights can then be curtailed. Whilst this argument might be true in a broad sense, any seasoned commentator on this issue will easily point out how tax increases alone are an extremely blunt instrument. Airlines like Easyjet have also repeatedly called for the hypothecation of these taxes, i.e. that revenue raised from air passenger duty should be used towards environmental improvements. Whilst there will never be a perfect taxation system (notwithstanding the fact that emissions trading also has its flaws), there are a number of very legitimate concerns about the current application of APD, namely:

• Discrimination against the UK tourism industry, and the shortest flights. UK domestic flights now attract a duty of £10 each way - which works out at a whopping £80 for a family of four to travel from Belfast to London for the weekend. This means that, in addition to the existing perceptions about it being expensive to stay in the UK, there is an even greater financial incentive to take flights to more distant destinations within Europe.
• There is no accounting for more efficient aircraft. Unlike road duty, APD is applied at a fixed rate, whether passengers are travelling on a full Flybe Q400 from Birmingham to Edinburgh, or a half empty and ageing KLM Fokker 70 from Glasgow to Athens via Amsterdam. The latter might produce up to ten times the emissions, yet the former is taxed at the same rate - and as if that wasn’t enough, taxed again on the return journey!
• Damage to emerging markets. The definition of long-haul is based on continental boundaries, rather than flight duration. This particularly penalises emerging economies like Morocco and Egypt, which are only marginally further away from the UK than Spain or Greece respectively. 
• Unfair scapegoating of airlines. Whilst it might be true that air travel generally causes more emissions per mile travelled than other modes of transport, these differences are often over-exaggerated, especially considering the relatively high rates of occupancy on most no-frills airlines, compared to intercity trains, which often run half-empty outside of peak hours.

Bad precedent

If our bookings for January are anything to go by, then these latest APD changes have done little to dampen the public’s enthusiasm for cheap flights. No doubt environmentalists and politicians would argue this justifies even more tax rises, rather than trying to think through a more coherent long-term green policy. Considering that both global warming and air travel are inherently international issues, then we really do think this is one area that countries need to work together on.

With the newly re-branded Conservatives trotting out the “go green, vote blue” mantra, we have every reason to suspect that flights will be an easy target for both Tony Blair’s immediate successor, and for whichever government holds the reins of power after the next general election.  The environment is clearly going to be more of a winner than it ever has been, but no politician should pretend that all environmentally conscious voters have windmills on their roofs and cycle to work.

Countless surveys have shown that most people will accept paying more for commodities like flights, if that means that the extra revenue raised will be spent on environment projects, but politicians should also not forget just how much the no-frills airlines have truly democratised the skies, and brought about many travel opportunities which have never previously existed.