Originally Posted by
jerseyfinn
Thanks for the post Dukeman.
Your link turns into a sort of unintentional but useful Where's Waldo search of links within links. Finally it does yield a direct link to Mr. Brown's speech which says:
"From February 1st we will double air passenger duty. For most journeys - over 75 per cent of them - duty will rise from £5 to £10
- securing extra resources in the coming spending round for our priorities such as public transport and the environment."
So by (politico) inference, that £40 UG fee becomes £80 as they assume that folks flying J are magically more wealthy ( and exploitative ) than the Y folks in the back. I've never objected too strongly to the £40 surcharge, but given the exchange rates and the heavy hand of Parliament, this £ 80 is an excessive surcharge, especially for the soft US Air J product. Lot's of folks will be saying
ouch when they hit the US air Club desk at LGW and get whacked with this one.
My wife and I were just in London a couple of weeks ago and the papers made some mention of this increase. Less clear to me is the talk circulating around Europe about carbon/ozone taxes on the airlines which will quite naturally be passed directly to the flying public. I don't know if this increase reflects that tax, or it's it's simply part of Mr. Brown's general revenue grab out of peoples' pockets, leaving the carbon taxes the next thing being shoved up aviation's arse.
And people thought that terrorism, overcapacity, and fuel prices were the airlines' worst nightmares.
Barry
It's a hefty increase, I agree. As to your question regarding whether pax in the front are more wealthy than those in coach...
of course they are. That's why they are sat there. They have better jobs, fly more miles, have more money. Why should they not pay more?
£10 is a lot of money for Ethel, sat in coach on her annual trip to see her daughter which she saves up for all year. £80 is nothing to the high-flying businessman in Envoy. In a fair world, ALL taxes would be applied in this way. Good on Gordon Brown, I say. The US is damaging the environment more than any Western nation - if only Bush would tax accordingly; but sadly he is tied to the industrialist right wing, and is a lame puppet of international corporations.
