Actually, you are right that I forgot to untick "allow airport changes" in my search, resulting in mixed itineraries. The corrected table is as follows:

Route Airline Cost
PEK-FCO SU £633
PEK-CDG SU £647
PEK-LHR SU £656
PEK-CDG CZ £663
PEK-FCO HU/SN £673
PEK-CDG AY £678
PEK-LHR OS £680
PEK-CDG CZ/KL £694
PEK-FCO AF £703
PEK-FCO TK £707
PEK-CDG OS £708
PEK-FCO LX £709
PEK-FCO AY £711
PEK-CDG LX £712
PEK-LHR LX £714
PEK-FCO MU/AZ £717
PEK-CDG AF £728
PEK-FCO LH £728
PEK-CDG LH £734
PEK-CDG KL £746
PEK-LHR LH £746


It still shows the same thing: that there is no clear pattern of fares to London being increased by the amount of the APD. This is true across the board and also on many individual airlines.

For instance, SU cheapest fares to London are indeed more expensive than to Paris but by a mere £9. Once you take into account exchange rates variations, this is pretty much indiscernible.
Conversely, the lowest OS fare on PEK-LHR (£680) is lower than their lowest fare on PEK-CDG (£708).
LX charges £709 to FCO, £712 to CDG and £714 to LHR, so pretty much the same. Ditto for LH at £732, £734 and £742 respectively. All in all, thus, there is no evidence of systematic higher fares to London due to APD.

You are quite right that CZ does charge substantially more to LON than to CDG. It seems that CZ does not seem to follow usual market pricing principles and seemingly has a set fare for "Europe" regardless of what the demand is to various destinations. But what this shows is that it is dangerous to draw conclusions based on just one airline, especially an airline which has pricing practices that seemingly run counter to normal market practices.

Air China does the same thing (that itinerary is ¥993 cheaper to CDG, of which ¥902 is APD)
China Eastern does absorb some of the fare difference, but it is still ¥702 more expensive to fly to LHR.

That's 3 of the biggest airlines in the world coming from one of the most important markets, in other words far from just an anomaly. Spread across a family those APD charges add up. If they didn't affect flights at all the APD debate would be non existent, but it's not.

So what? Yes, these are big airlines but a very large proportion of that traffic is domestic chinese traffic. Being overwhelmingly big on domestic Chinese routes does not make you the most significant carriers on Asia to Europe markets, let alone on rest-of-the-world to Europe markets. None of these 3 is a dominant player on Asia to Europe. This may change in the future but perhaps so might rather idiosyncratic pricing policies that are unlike those of most other carriers in not seemingly taking into account supply and demand. :)

If you want to see the impact APD has, you must compare like for like fares, not discounted fares that come and go frequently from different airlines. Many passengers will not be interested in getting a rock bottom fare with a stopover in Moscow or wherever else. If there was no impact, there would not be the countless debates and articles in traditional and social media that there is.

All I know is that in business class, LHR-SFO is noticeably more expensive than BRU-SFO + Eurostar ticket + local ticket from Gare du Midi to the airport.

Even if you miss the flight?

What?!

If you fly US to UK, break your trip then continue UK to France, you will only pay 4 x short haul economy APD.

That is $100 max for 4.

Breaking your trip on the return will I admit be $700.

So it should be. LHR-SFO is a choice of 5 non-stops on airlines with fully lie flat seats accomplished in 11 hours of travelling. London by Eurostar to BRU-SFO is, at best, three segments with non lie flat components and will take at least 5 hours longer - probably eight hours longer. It will be an exhausting day's travelling rather than a comfortable one and you will lose a productive morning in London or a productive afternoon in SF. IMHO it would be better yo go in Y on the non-stop - less tiring and stressful and the money saved will purchase an excellent lunch at LHR.

I agree that it would be nonsensical to compare a rock bottom fare via Moscow to a flex fare on a direct flight.
However, comparing a rock bottom fare PEK-LON via Moscow to a rock bottom fare PEK-PAR via Moscow IS comparing like with like.
Moreover, I did not give a single example but several, including airlines like LH or LX. Now, if you consider that passengers are not interested in flying airlines like Lufthansa or Swiss between Asia and Europe, I will leave that judgment to you.

If you believe that discussion of something in social media or even traditional media provides conclusive evidence of the truth of what is being discussed, then I think that we will have to agree to having very different views of what constitutes convincing evidence of a fact or phenomenon.

And you consider that as being conclusive evidence that APD is the cause of the price differential? Have you perhaps contemplated the possibility that there might be other factors at play?

The APD charges aren't large enough to make me want to avoid them however some taxes/charges on awards are but there has to be for a reason for doing it besides saving money.

Flying to the UK from EZE via MAD actually makes the journey more enjoyable. It shortens the long haul sector into a more manageable length plus offers a daylight flight back which is the biggest bonus for me. Madrid is a nice city to stopover and when using Avios transferred into IB you save hundreds of pounds on the taxes....far more than the cost of a hotel for a night or two.
I really don't fancy doing all that hopping off then getting back on the same plane to end up back where I started malarkey. The wife wouldn't be too pleased with it either. However, if the savings were enough +£1000 I'd be tempted.

Just to add I take advantage of BA's RFS awards for the MAD -UK flights.

Nope, all I care is that it's cheaper. And that I can have a nice meal in Brussels.

Still, do you honestly think that the 138 pound tax isn't relevant? And of course, on an award ticket with an airline that doesn't have "fuel charges" the entire difference is the tax.

It is very relevant on award tickets, whether or not the airline includes fuel surcharges, but has very little relevance on revenue tickets as variations in the base fare will typically compensate and fares will for the most part be detemined primarily by supply and demand, viz. what the market will bear

The APD differential is not large enough for me to look to avoid it - anything I do to try to avoid is likely to take more time and end up costing close to what the original ticket would have been in the first place.

My experience is similar; often not worth the extra travel time, and often times, expense.

A rare exception might be DUB to ??? and back into LHR, but this often depends on the cost of the LHR-DUB fare. As I typically drive to the airport (save quite a bit thanks to parkatmyhouse.com), I need to depart/return to the same LON airport.

:)