hfly

This is the second time around for this renewed Socialist manifesto, it is amazing how these sort of headlines get traction in the UK. 10% of people in the UK take half the flights? How about 30% of people in the UK are on public benefits? Then the rest of the articles inevitably talk about giving people a Free of tax holiday flight per year, ignoring the facts that Business people are the ones who fly the most, and also pay the most in APD's which are and still theoretically supposed to be used at least in part on environmental issues?
SO the other 90% takes the other 50% of the flights. OK.

I love how extreme leftist groups can use common sense numbers to cover socialism in environmentalism, and how many useful idiots lap it up.

Seriously, only 1% of Indians, or 5% of Chinese or whatever. 75% of Indians do not have toilets, it was 95% a generation, this does not surprise anyone does it?

I can just picture people in Surbiton reading this drivel and feeling both self guilt/loathing for their last trip, and then become anti-travel warriors based on the purported injustices of the World.

ThatT1Feeling

I'd still fly with BA if BAEC were made illegal, but it wouldn't any longer be my first choice when looking for a flight - rather than ba.com which is always currently my first port of call, I'd go to Google Flights and would choose the best value if there were competition of reasonable quality on the route (i.e. not FR or similar)

I'd also be mightily frustrated, having only hit GFL in the last couple of years!

azepine00

Free market comes with a big asterisk in this industry given extremely high cost of entry regulated nature of business and minimal or no competition for many routes.

Would a short trip on a train cost multiples of longer one just because demand for shorter is different? How about bus? 10 mi taxi ride cheaper than 2 mi because of different demand? We are used to airline pricing models but they are very bizarre relative to transportation pricing in general.

The Geek

Would we fly as much? Yes.
Would we flay as much with BA? No

For frequent UK leisure travellers like ourselves that aren't picky about dates, the status benefits of BA / OW nearly always provide the best value product.

Without them you may as well use PP in combination with the O'Lary express.

T8191

I abase myself before the FTBA community, and metaphorically impale myself on my rusty old sword.

As revealed in today’s Jersey Evening Post, the “proposed traffic regulation” was an April Fool’s joke. Certainly fooled this old git ... it was perfectly aligned with other stupid/incompetent/mega-expensive/unworkable States’ initiatives!

Back to flying BA, then. Apologies for the diversion ... I realise how inconvenient ... blah blah blah ... ™️

TPJ

This is so naive... If FF programs are banned in the UK, people will always be able to use airlines from other countries and accrue miles in TK, QR or EK programs... And they will fly more via intermediate points emitting more Or Greta et al. think the governments that invested so much money in their airlines will now agree to ban FF programs? What do they smoke?

Globaliser

True, but once your airline is set up then it's largely a free market for setting your fares.I present to you: the Heathrow Express.

Analogies are difficult, because trains and planes work differently from each other (as do buses and taxis). But yes, there is a well-known phenomenon that on a train that starts at A, calls at B and ends at C, the fare for A-B may be (enforceably) higher than the fare for A-C. Conversely, sometimes the fare for A-B plus the fare for B-C is less than the fare for A-C.

Fatdickie

Isn't that called "Split ticketing"
Isn't there a website or two devoted to this and savings can be phenomenal.
Where you might have a half dozen seperate tickets for different elements of your journey, rather than one single ticket, often without even leaving the train.

The Ginge

The people who put this together have addressed the practicalities of this a little by saying there would need to be a central database recording everyone's flights to make sure the tax is applied correctly.

My questions would be:

Is this database in real time, i.e. does it apply at time of booking or does it look up later then apply the tax?

How does it work for people who aren't UK resident?

I have a first name that can be shortened, passport in full name but driving licence in short name, I could fly a domestic flight on short name so would it pick up I am the same person?

If I fly regularly for work will I be penalised for taking one flight a year on holiday? (I normally take more though!) Why should I be taxed more on a personal flight when I have to fly for work purposes.

This sounds very complicated to manage.

Im a new user

If a passenger gets benefits on airline A but not on airline B, then airline A can have a bit higher prices as some passengers wouldn't dream about travelling with airline B. I don't know how much this brings up the prices. Probably depends on the route.

There are plenty of situations where you can make hidden city train bookings. As an example, Deutsche Bahn has Sparpreis Europa which means discounted international tickets to/from Germany. Sometimes it's cheaper to book a ticket to the first station in Germany than to book a ticket for travel entirely outside Germany. Stockholm to Flensburg via Copenhagen can be cheaper than Stockholm to Copenhagen. London to Aachen via Brussels can be cheaper than London to Brussels. As an extra bonus, train tickets aren't cancelled if you "miss" the first segment.

rstruthe

I do the vast majority of my travel on miles provided by my credit card. I fly long haul first class around the world once a year and a few smaller trips within Western Europe or North America.
If I couldn’t use reward miles for these it would definitely curb my travel. For the foreseeable future I could still transfer miles to aadvantage or Aeroplan instead of BAEC, so this might not affect me much!

Concerto

deleted

FlyingScientist

Isn't this the board with the people who would still fly with BA even if that was illegal?

Cyberhacker

I suspect that the "wealthy" adjective is media-spin... equally, I suspect the vast majority of that 15% are business travellers, whose toing and froing is a significant contributor to UK plc.

As such, a frequent flyer levy would be a serious own-goal.

But never underestimate the greenwash

Cyberhacker

I fly BA because, living where I do, LHR is the most convenient airport, and BA flies to where I need to go.
I fly other airlines where routing is more appropriate... I even fly from LGW or STN (including RyanAir or EasyJet) where necessary.
My BAEC status merely makes the pre-flight experience more pleasant... my PriorityPass is just as useful.