Jul 18, 2014, 8:16 am
Last edit by: Prospero
(Link) to “United Kingdom Air Passenger Duty (APD) Charged UK Departing Passengers”
Link to html full APD tax law
APD rates as of 01 Apr 2020:
Band A (0 to 2,000 miles) £13 Reduced, £26 Standard
Band B (anything over 2,000 miles): Reduced £80, Standard £176
Infants and children
“Children below the age of 2 years who are not allocated a separate seat before boarding the aircraft are not chargeable passengers. If a seat is purchased for the infant then APD is chargeable.
From 1 May 2015, children who are under the age of 12 years on the date of the flight, and in the lowest class of travel, are not chargeable passengers. Children 12 years and over, or travelling in any other class, are chargeable passengers and APD is due.
From 1 March 2016 children who are under the age of 16 years on the date of the flight, and in the lowest class of travel, are not chargeable passengers. Children 16 years and over, or travelling in any other class, are chargeable passengers and APD is due.”
General notes:
distances calculated between national capitals - e.g. HNL calculated as WAS.
Link to Source: U.K. Excise Notice 550: Air Passenger Duty
APD is due when passengers pay to upgrade any stage of their journey
N.B. Arriving at a UK airport will not incur APD. Connections with less than 24 hours will generally not require APD*; you may have to have the rate desk intervene if you are not on a through ticket. As noted, "band distance" is calculated Capital to Capital.
APD is not charged on flights originating in the Scottish Highlands (INV) or Islands. APD is not payable on direct, Band B, flights departing Northern Ireland.
* Connecting flights exemption (UK APD regulation)
“The connected flights must be detailed on the same ticket or conjunction tickets to qualify for the exemption. Tickets can only be regarded as conjunction tickets if:
a. they are in one booklet, or
b. where they are in separate booklets:
each refers to the other and states that they are to be read in conjunction
there is a summary of the flights constituting the passengers journey including the flights in question
Although the flights may meet all the other criteria for determining whether Two flights are connected, they will only qualify for the exemption if the connection is evidenced on the ticket or a flight summary.”
AA (c/o JonNYC, post #219):
septix by JonNYCme, on Flickr
Link to html full APD tax law
APD rates as of 01 Apr 2020:
Band A (0 to 2,000 miles) £13 Reduced, £26 Standard
Band B (anything over 2,000 miles): Reduced £80, Standard £176
Infants and children
“Children below the age of 2 years who are not allocated a separate seat before boarding the aircraft are not chargeable passengers. If a seat is purchased for the infant then APD is chargeable.
From 1 May 2015, children who are under the age of 12 years on the date of the flight, and in the lowest class of travel, are not chargeable passengers. Children 12 years and over, or travelling in any other class, are chargeable passengers and APD is due.
From 1 March 2016 children who are under the age of 16 years on the date of the flight, and in the lowest class of travel, are not chargeable passengers. Children 16 years and over, or travelling in any other class, are chargeable passengers and APD is due.”
General notes:
distances calculated between national capitals - e.g. HNL calculated as WAS.
Link to Source: U.K. Excise Notice 550: Air Passenger Duty
APD is due when passengers pay to upgrade any stage of their journey
N.B. Arriving at a UK airport will not incur APD. Connections with less than 24 hours will generally not require APD*; you may have to have the rate desk intervene if you are not on a through ticket. As noted, "band distance" is calculated Capital to Capital.
APD is not charged on flights originating in the Scottish Highlands (INV) or Islands. APD is not payable on direct, Band B, flights departing Northern Ireland.
* Connecting flights exemption (UK APD regulation)
“The connected flights must be detailed on the same ticket or conjunction tickets to qualify for the exemption. Tickets can only be regarded as conjunction tickets if:
a. they are in one booklet, or
b. where they are in separate booklets:
each refers to the other and states that they are to be read in conjunction
there is a summary of the flights constituting the passengers journey including the flights in question
Although the flights may meet all the other criteria for determining whether Two flights are connected, they will only qualify for the exemption if the connection is evidenced on the ticket or a flight summary.”
AA (c/o JonNYC, post #219):
septix by JonNYCme, on Flickr
UK APD / Air Passenger Duty charged for UK departures (Master Thread)
Mar 19, 2014, 5:06 pm
#16
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Mar 19, 2014, 6:35 pm
#17
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 2,342
The changes make the APD to Caribbean countries the same as the APD to the USA, which is good because previously London-PUJ is in a higher bracket than London-Hawaii, which is absurd because Hawaii is so much further from London.
Mar 20, 2014, 2:10 am
#18
Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Programs: BA, KLM, United, US Airways
Posts: 4
However the change does not apply until 1 April 2015, and so far as I can see the duty applies at the date of purchase of the ticket not the date of the flight; so it won't help me with my significant birthday trip to Peru which I will be booking in a few months to fly in April 2015!
This really is quite silly because airline travel is not the same as buying petrol (gas) or paying UK Road Fund Licence (car sticker tax) for immediate or more or less immediate use, where tax changes usually apply from 6.00pm on the date of the Budget announcement by the Chancellor.
This will mean that in the next year those planning discretionary travel to destinations whose capital cities are more than 4,000 miles from LON may well postpone those trips by a year; so initially it will have the opposite effect to that intended.
I urge all those in the UK to write to the Chancellor and/or their MP's asking for the change to be implemented in such a way as the date of the flight becomes the relevant date, not the date of booking.
This really is quite silly because airline travel is not the same as buying petrol (gas) or paying UK Road Fund Licence (car sticker tax) for immediate or more or less immediate use, where tax changes usually apply from 6.00pm on the date of the Budget announcement by the Chancellor.
This will mean that in the next year those planning discretionary travel to destinations whose capital cities are more than 4,000 miles from LON may well postpone those trips by a year; so initially it will have the opposite effect to that intended.
I urge all those in the UK to write to the Chancellor and/or their MP's asking for the change to be implemented in such a way as the date of the flight becomes the relevant date, not the date of booking.
Mar 20, 2014, 2:44 am
#19
Moderator: American AAdvantage, Signatures
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OK everyone, APD debates--especially those involving politics and politicians--do not belong in the AA forum. As was noted upthread, the recent change has zero impact on AA flights, so let's keep this thread on topic by avoiding discussion of APD to other destinations or the political motivations behind the change. Posts which can't keep within those bounds will be redacted or removed.
The beauty of a wiki is that everyone can edit it.@:-)
If you see an inaccuracy, please fix it rather than asking a fellow member to fix it for you.
~Moderator
If you see an inaccuracy, please fix it rather than asking a fellow member to fix it for you.~Moderator
Mar 25, 2014, 6:11 pm
#20
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: ORD
Programs: AA EXP >3 Million miles,HH Lifetime Diamond
Posts: 2,887
Connecting within 24 hours without a through ticket / with two separate tickets (as indicated above by teemuflyer ^, and verified by my experience today - and previously, but today I took the time to pay attention to the process, as the EXP agent didn't know what the heck I was talking about):
We are connecting at LHR on a (return legs) KEF-LHR-ORD-SFO FI to AA, separate tickets, but (barely) with 24 hour connection. Contacting AA, we were able to give the FI (Icelander) ticket number - this allowed the Rate Desk to view the FI (1008-) ticket, and delete the APD from our (001) AA ticket, resulting in a cost savings $452.40 for two people.
This took some time - over thirty minutes for the EXP agent to get the Rate Desk to research it, view our FI tickets and make the requisite changes to our tickets. Interestingly, the otherwise capable EXP agent did not know this could be done; he thanked me for the opportunity to learn something new. I smiled all the way to the bank.
Off topic, as one ticket was a paid ticket and the other an award ticket, asking the agent to associate the two PNRs with a "TCP" (To Complete Party) took little time and easily got it done. When I went to get the paid ticket at the local airport ticket counter (I was using a voucher for partial payment) the longtime Ticket Agent (ex-TW, iirc) knew how to accept and document the voucher, but did not know about the "TCP" annotation in the remarks section of the PNR.
Knowing all this stuff from FlyerTalk is, as they say in New Orleans, a nice lagniappe (in southern Cuba it's "la ñapa" - what you possibly didn't know is the term is from the Andean Kechwa / Quechua / Runasimi language). FT ^!
We are connecting at LHR on a (return legs) KEF-LHR-ORD-SFO FI to AA, separate tickets, but (barely) with 24 hour connection. Contacting AA, we were able to give the FI (Icelander) ticket number - this allowed the Rate Desk to view the FI (1008-) ticket, and delete the APD from our (001) AA ticket, resulting in a cost savings $452.40 for two people.
This took some time - over thirty minutes for the EXP agent to get the Rate Desk to research it, view our FI tickets and make the requisite changes to our tickets. Interestingly, the otherwise capable EXP agent did not know this could be done; he thanked me for the opportunity to learn something new. I smiled all the way to the bank.
Off topic, as one ticket was a paid ticket and the other an award ticket, asking the agent to associate the two PNRs with a "TCP" (To Complete Party) took little time and easily got it done. When I went to get the paid ticket at the local airport ticket counter (I was using a voucher for partial payment) the longtime Ticket Agent (ex-TW, iirc) knew how to accept and document the voucher, but did not know about the "TCP" annotation in the remarks section of the PNR.
Knowing all this stuff from FlyerTalk is, as they say in New Orleans, a nice lagniappe (in southern Cuba it's "la ñapa" - what you possibly didn't know is the term is from the Andean Kechwa / Quechua / Runasimi language). FT ^!
BTW Lagniappe was the name of my high school's musical production every year. I don't think any of us knew what it meant and where the word came from. The high school was in the Midwest so who knows where the idea came from but the word stuck.
Mar 26, 2014, 10:45 am
#21
Moderator: American AAdvantage
Join Date: May 2000
Location: NorCal - SMF area
Programs: AA LT Plat; HH LT Diamond, Maître-plongeur des Muccis
Posts: 62,948
The wiki has been updated to reflect some changes affecting those departing UK for, say, Africa, Argentina Caribbean, India or Australia (lower rates).
http://www.travelweekly.com/Travel-N...e&cid=eltreuro
TravelWeekly has published the United Kingdom will eliminate the uppermost of two distance-based "bands" calculated between the countries' capitals, not the actual airports flown between - e.g. LHR-WAS for, say, LHR-LAX - and reduce the amount charged travellers leaving the UK by air. The onerous Air Passenger Duty, or APD, is by far the highest "departure tax" charged air travellers anywhere in the world.
Unfortunately, the remaining APD is still quite high and onerous "departure tax". (APD is not paid for arrival, nor by passengers connecting within 23:59 hour period.) The full rate is charged for other than Economy passengers, who pay a "discounted" rate.
The thread with current APD rates and discussion can be found in the AA Pre-Merger Forum: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...pr-2013-a.html
Aloha. The huge advantage of a wiki (Hawaiian Polynesian language for "quick") is nobody has to wait for a moderator or original post author to edit or update with new information. ANY signed in member can "quickly" do that. @:-)
http://www.travelweekly.com/Travel-N...e&cid=eltreuro
TravelWeekly has published the United Kingdom will eliminate the uppermost of two distance-based "bands" calculated between the countries' capitals, not the actual airports flown between - e.g. LHR-WAS for, say, LHR-LAX - and reduce the amount charged travellers leaving the UK by air. The onerous Air Passenger Duty, or APD, is by far the highest "departure tax" charged air travellers anywhere in the world.
Unfortunately, the remaining APD is still quite high and onerous "departure tax". (APD is not paid for arrival, nor by passengers connecting within 23:59 hour period.) The full rate is charged for other than Economy passengers, who pay a "discounted" rate.
Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne announced on Wednesday... the two upper bands will be abolished, so that one band will cover all flights of more than 2,000 miles. The change will take place in April 2015, he said.
The policy change reduces the tax on flying to India and the Caribbean to 69 British pounds from 85 pounds in economy class and to 138 pounds from 170 pounds in premium cabins, making it the same as for flying to the United States.
APD on flights to Australia, Singapore and Argentina is effectively reduced from 96 pounds in economy and 192 pounds in premium cabins.
The policy change reduces the tax on flying to India and the Caribbean to 69 British pounds from 85 pounds in economy class and to 138 pounds from 170 pounds in premium cabins, making it the same as for flying to the United States.
APD on flights to Australia, Singapore and Argentina is effectively reduced from 96 pounds in economy and 192 pounds in premium cabins.
Aloha. The huge advantage of a wiki (Hawaiian Polynesian language for "quick") is nobody has to wait for a moderator or original post author to edit or update with new information. ANY signed in member can "quickly" do that. @:-)
Last edited by JDiver; Mar 26, 2014 at 10:20 pm Reason: add main impact of APD (not on UK-US flyers)
Mar 26, 2014, 10:59 am
#22
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OK everyone, APD debates--especially those involving politics and politicians--do not belong in the AA forum. As was noted upthread, the recent change has zero impact on AA flights, so let's keep this thread on topic by avoiding discussion of APD to other destinations or the political motivations behind the change. Posts which can't keep within those bounds will be redacted or removed.
The beauty of a wiki is that everyone can edit it.@:-) If you see an inaccuracy, please fix it rather than asking a fellow member to fix it for you.
~Moderator
The beauty of a wiki is that everyone can edit it.@:-)
If you see an inaccuracy, please fix it rather than asking a fellow member to fix it for you.~Moderator
Do the moderators monitor the WIKIS on a regular basis?
Mar 26, 2014, 10:11 pm
#23
Moderator: American AAdvantage
Join Date: May 2000
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If I want 99% reliable information, I guess I'd have to pay for it somewhere - only I'd still possibly receive misinformation. Maybe there is a paid site with salaried experts and moderators out there... it ain't here.
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Jun 28, 2014, 4:54 pm
#24
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: SFO
Programs: AA EXP, MM
Posts: 87
Avoiding APD / Air Passenger Duty when transiting LHR / Britain on separate tickets
Hi all,
Any insights appreciated -- I'm flying SFO to BLR on two separate PNRs (currently on hold, not ticketed yet) through LHR (SFO-ORD-LHR on AA RT on a revenue ticket, and LHR-BLR on BA RT on an award mileage ticket), and was wondering if there are any ways to avoid the outrageous UK taxes that crop up, in particular on the BA legs if in business.
Due to availability I had to put two separate reservations on hold via AA.com, and the BA legs have $300+ taxes each way. I believe these taxes only apply for flights ending/originating in LHR, but if you are a transfer passenger the taxes are much lower.
Any way to get the taxes computed on both PNRs as one journey? Since both are on hold I believe I could ask the EXP helpdesk to merge these itineraries before ticketing and perhaps recompute taxes, but the issue is one fare is set to expire shortly and so I need to ticket it soon, while the award itinerary on BA would like more time to finalize plans.
Is it possible to get the taxes recomputed if the two PNRs are ticketed separately?
Thanks for any help.
Any insights appreciated -- I'm flying SFO to BLR on two separate PNRs (currently on hold, not ticketed yet) through LHR (SFO-ORD-LHR on AA RT on a revenue ticket, and LHR-BLR on BA RT on an award mileage ticket), and was wondering if there are any ways to avoid the outrageous UK taxes that crop up, in particular on the BA legs if in business.
Due to availability I had to put two separate reservations on hold via AA.com, and the BA legs have $300+ taxes each way. I believe these taxes only apply for flights ending/originating in LHR, but if you are a transfer passenger the taxes are much lower.
Any way to get the taxes computed on both PNRs as one journey? Since both are on hold I believe I could ask the EXP helpdesk to merge these itineraries before ticketing and perhaps recompute taxes, but the issue is one fare is set to expire shortly and so I need to ticket it soon, while the award itinerary on BA would like more time to finalize plans.
Is it possible to get the taxes recomputed if the two PNRs are ticketed separately?
Thanks for any help.
Jun 28, 2014, 5:21 pm
#26
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: MEL CHC
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Departures only from UK airports have UK Air Passenger Duty This does not apply for transits.
Never confuse carrier imposed surcharges/fees (~profit) with real government taxes. BA has high fuel surcharges
Never confuse carrier imposed surcharges/fees (~profit) with real government taxes. BA has high fuel surcharges
Jun 28, 2014, 5:21 pm
#27
Moderator: British Airways Executive Club, Iberia Airlines, Airport Lounges and Environmentally Friendly Travel
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: London, UK
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The taxes are hefty and by splitting your itinerary into two separate bookings, the HM treasury is dinging you twice over, first on the LHR-BLR, and again on the LHR-ORD.
The only way to avoid the UK APD charges is to book this as a single, through ticket.
The only way to avoid the UK APD charges is to book this as a single, through ticket.
Jun 28, 2014, 5:26 pm
#28
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: SFO
Programs: AA EXP, MM
Posts: 87
Spoke with EXP helpdesk and they said it's not possible to join revenue segments with award segments in the same ticket. If they are ticketed separately then the taxes are computed on origin/destination city pairs, and since you can't join revenue/award segments it wouldn't be possible to price it out as SFO-BLR and thus avoid the LHR origination/destination taxes -- or so they say at least.
Jun 28, 2014, 5:32 pm
#29
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Jun 28, 2014, 5:37 pm
#30
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Join Date: Oct 1999
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Posts: 15,815
$948 fuel surcharge on RT LHR-BLR? Dont think that's accurate. Also if you price it out directly SFO-BLR taxes are not nearly this high. These are luxury taxes out of the UK for business/first class seats.
Spoke with EXP helpdesk and they said it's not possible to join revenue segments with award segments in the same ticket. If they are ticketed separately then the taxes are computed on origin/destination city pairs, and since you can't join revenue/award segments it wouldn't be possible to price it out as SFO-BLR and thus avoid the LHR origination/destination taxes -- or so they say at least.
Spoke with EXP helpdesk and they said it's not possible to join revenue segments with award segments in the same ticket. If they are ticketed separately then the taxes are computed on origin/destination city pairs, and since you can't join revenue/award segments it wouldn't be possible to price it out as SFO-BLR and thus avoid the LHR origination/destination taxes -- or so they say at least.
You can see how much the APD is here:
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/rates/apd.htm
If you are merely transitting the UK then the APD will not be assessed; as others have told you by purchasing separate tickets the APD is assessed both directions.