UK Air Passenger Duty to increase

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Dave Noble

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The UK has announced that from the 1st February, the Air Passenger duty will be doubled. For those departing on a long heaul service from the UK, this will mean that the Air Passenger Duty will change from ₤20 to ₤40 in economy class. Travelling in Premium Economy, Business or 1st, then the increase will be from ₤40 to ₤80.

See Pre-Budget Report 2006: Speech

Dave
 
Dave Noble said:
The UK has announced that from the 1st February, the Air Passenger duty will be doubled. For those departing on a long heaul service from the UK, this will mean that the Air Passenger Duty will change from ₤20 to ₤40 in economy class. Travelling in Premium Economy, Business or 1st, then the increase will be from ₤40 to ₤80.

See Pre-Budget Report 2006: Speech

Dave
Ouch! That is even more incentive to not stopover in the UK.
 
NM said:
Ouch! That is even more incentive to not stopover in the UK.

Absolutely. I will be making sure that I book my flights from a certain location near Europe to the US (with a stop in the UK) before February. $150 (approx) departure tax is ridiculous

Dave
 
Dave Noble said:
Absolutely. I will be making sure that I book my flights from a certain location near Europe to the US (with a stop in the UK) before February. $150 (approx) departure tax is ridiculous

Dave
But doesn't this still apply if you route, say AMS-LHR-SYD with a stop of >24 hours in the UK? The only way to avoid the ₤40/₤80 is to either depart on a short flight or transit the UK. And the UK rule is not even just a simple 24 hours, its a more complicated calculation of hours based on the time of the arriving flight (i.e. evening arrivals permit an overnight but departure must be before 11am or something like that).
 
NM said:
But doesn't this still apply if you route, say AMS-LHR-SYD with a stop of >24 hours in the UK? The only way to avoid the ₤40/₤80 is to either depart on a short flight or transit the UK. And the UK rule is not even just a simple 24 hours, its a more complicated calculation of hours based on the time of the arriving flight (i.e. evening arrivals permit an overnight but departure must be before 11am or something like that).

Indeed. What I meant was that I intend to book before february so that I only get gouged the ₤40 rate rather than the ₤80 rate and that I also agree that it is a great incentive to avoid having a longhaul departure from the UK after a stopover. I didn't make that clear in my reply

Dave
 
BA could be a loser unless EU follows suit. Will be a bigger incentive to take shorthaul flight out of UK to connect to longhaul somewhere in EU.

This then raises emissions, the opposite of the supposed intent.
 
Dave Noble said:
Indeed. What I meant was that I intend to book before february so that I only get gouged the ₤40 rate rather than the ₤80 rate and that I also agree that it is a great incentive to avoid having a longhaul departure from the UK after a stopover. I didn't make that clear in my reply

Dave

Will they not try to collect the increase at check in?
 
So, if you are in the UK you can arrange your bookings so that you fly to, say CDG for ~£40, then depart Paris back through the UK in Premium and avoid the £80 levy. This assumes it is unlikely to cost more than an additional £40 for ex CDG routing.
 
Kiwi Flyer said:
Will they not try to collect the increase at check in?

I doubt very much that they will try to backdate it to tickets issued before the change

Dave
 
serfty said:
So, if you are in the UK you can arrange your bookings so that you fly to, say CDG for ~£40, then depart Paris back through the UK in Premium and avoid the £80 levy. This assumes it is unlikely to cost more than an additional £40 for ex CDG routing.



Yes. To save even more, fly LHR-CDG in economy ( since there is little difference between Y and J on that run imo ) and pay GBP20 and then route in a premium cabin back through the UK and save GBP60

Or , for example, instead of doing LHR-SIN , you could do LHR-FRA-SIN and avoid the backtracking

Dave
 
serfty said:
So, if you are in the UK you can arrange your bookings so that you fly to, say CDG for ~£40, then depart Paris back through the UK in Premium and avoid the £80 levy. This assumes it is unlikely to cost more than an additional £40 for ex CDG routing.

Either 2 tickets LHR-zzz-LHR (zzz being somewhere cheap to get longhaul tickets eg GIB or ARN) and zzz-xLHR-yyy-xLHR-zzz, or 1 ticket LHR-AMS/CDG/FRA/MUC/etc-zzz return.

Assuming EU isn't following I would think AF/KL/LH/etc will promote along these lines.
 
serfty said:
So, if you are in the UK you can arrange your bookings so that you fly to, say CDG for ~£40, then depart Paris back through the UK in Premium and avoid the £80 levy. This assumes it is unlikely to cost more than an additional £40 for ex CDG routing.

Either 2 tickets LHR-zzz-LHR (zzz being somewhere cheap to get longhaul tickets eg GIB or ARN) and zzz-xLHR-yyy-xLHR-zzz, or 1 ticket LHR-AMS/CDG/FRA/MUC/etc-zzz return.

Assuming EU isn't following I would think AF/KL/LH/etc will advertise along these lines.
 
Note that in many cases it is cheaper to purchase a BA ticket commencing in places like AMS than it is to originate at LHR. So it may be cheaper to buy a cheap LHR-AMS-LHR fare and nest it with an AMS-LHR-SYD-LHR-AMS fare. The saving is going to be increased after this hike in the tax.

And that is before looking for more exotic places to commence the journey ;) .

From Australia, it will start to be desirable to use places like CDG as the European gateway and catch Eurostar through the chunnel to London.

On my next DONE4 I was going to pop into our UK office to catch up with some folks. Looks like I might just stick with visiting my colleagues in Germany.
 
NM said:
Note that in many cases it is cheaper to purchase a BA ticket commencing in places like AMS than it is to originate at LHR. So it may be cheaper to buy a cheap LHR-AMS-LHR fare and nest it with an AMS-LHR-SYD-LHR-AMS fare. The saving is going to be increased after this hike in the tax.

Indeed. A WT+ (T) fare from AMS-SYD r/t in Feb is $2868 plus taxes whilst ex LHR it is $3666 plus taxes. A $798 plus tax saving. Take the $200 GB on the LHR departure vs the $50 on an economy o/w to AMS, the savings really stack up to $948. The cheapest r/t ticket LHR-AMS is $13
Dave
 
How sure are we that they won't try to collect increase at check in if ticketed before 1 Feb? I have a RTW booked but not ticketed (don't we all? :D ), wondering whether ticket now, change to take UK out (easily done), etc.
 
Kiwi Flyer said:
How sure are we that they won't try to collect increase at check in if ticketed before 1 Feb? I have a RTW booked but not ticketed (don't we all? :D ), wondering whether ticket now, change to take UK out (easily done), etc.

I doubt v much that the new rate will apply to tickets issued before february, however should a reissue occur once the new rate is in place, I would expect it to be charged

I would suggest ticketing before Feb 1. Actually I don't have an ATW booked , I have a much nicer ticket arranged :) , though I do have a J ticket with a UK stop planned which I will make sure is booked before the APD hike is in place

Dave
 
Kiwi Flyer said:
The other option is to change stopover to 23 and a bit hour transit.
<24 hours is good for international transit. Domestic connections are limited to 6 hours or departure before 10am for arrivals after 5pm. But the GB tax on domestic flights is not so extravogant.

Another interesting exemption is for passengers who do not deplane. So just stay on the aircraft if you want to be in the UK for >24 hours. But convincing the airline to let you do that, and convincing the BAA to allow your visitors to meet with you on the plane, may also involve a jail term for hijacking :rolleyes: .
 
NM said:
Another interesting exemption is for passengers who do not deplane. So just stay on the aircraft if you want to be in the UK for >24 hours. But convincing the airline to let you do that, and convincing the BAA to allow your visitors to meet with you on the plane, may also involve a jail term for hijacking :rolleyes: .

Not necessarily. I can think of a few airlines that transit UK en route to US. If US took an age to process passenger data they could in theory be held up on the ground in UK for an extended period.
 
Kiwi Flyer said:
Not necessarily. I can think of a few airlines that transit UK en route to US. If US took an age to process passenger data they could in theory be held up on the ground in UK for an extended period.
But not something you could use for a planned meeting in the UK :evil: .
 
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