Any moment now, the Airports Commission will finally publish its recommendation for new runway capacity at either Heathrow or Gatwick. What will be missing from this report is a third option that would be preferred by many: no new runway at either airport.
Britain's skies are already some of the busiest in the world and Howard Davies knows that these expansion plans cannot be made to fit with the UK's long-term commitments under the Climate Change Act. Contrary to aviation lobby rhetoric, a new runway is not needed to allow more international business flights, which have been declining steadily since the turn of the century. The hub airport argument is a smokescreen. In reality, growing demand for air travel is concentrated in the short-haul leisure sector and among a small, wealthy minority of the population. It is more of these flights that a new runway will in practice service.
This growth in flights is driven by air fares that are kept artificially low through generous tax subsidies; aviation is exempt from fuel duty by international treaty and zero rated for VAT. Yet these tax breaks almost exclusively benefit the richest section of British society. Our analysis of passenger survey data shows that 15% of the UK population are taking 70% of all our flights. That's why we are calling today to replace air passenger duty with a frequent flyer levy that taxes travellers according to how often they fly, shifting the burden away from families flying to their one annual holiday and on to the frequent flyers who are driving expansion. Our research shows that this “polluter pays” approach would enable the UK to meet our climate targets without making flying the preserve of the rich — and without needing to build any new runways.
John Stewart, HACAN
Stewart Wallis, New Economics Foundation
John Sauven, Greenpeace UK
Joe Jenkins, Friends of the Earth
Stephen Joseph, Campaign for Better Transport
Manuel Cortes, TSSA Union
Tahir Latif, PCS Union Aviation Group president
John Christensen, Tax Justice Network
Duncan Exley, Equality Trust
Richard Murphy, Tax Research UK
Ed Gillespie, London Sustainability commissioner and co-founder Futerra
Andrew Simms, co-founder of the New Weather Institute & fellow of NEF
Elena Blackmore, Public Interest Research Centre
Jamie Andrews, Loco2
Leo Murray, 10:10
Richard Dixon, Friends of the Earth Scotland
Colin Howden, Transform Scotland
There's more on this here, in the Observer this morning.
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For some time I have wondered who is doing all that flying and why. What is quite batty is that it is ramped up as “investment” and “growth” despite the subsidies, losses and damage. As for runways, Manston in Kent, a major runway, has been shut when all it needed was adequate rail links along existing lines to other airports. But these did not fit the existing franchises.
I fly more than my share – but would happily pay
It is absurd I am flying to Copenhagen for about £70 return this week when the return rail fare to London from Norfolk can be somewhat more if travelling from Norwich
Then feel free to fly with BA which will leave little change from 350.
“Our analysis of passenger survey data shows that 15% of the UK population are taking 70% of all our flights” – What’s the equivalent %s for private car, other road public transport and for train travel?
To back up the case that air travel is exclusive, I think it would be helpful to know.
They do not get tax free status
So the comparison is not as direct as you’re implying
I’m not suggesting they do get tax free status, cheers. I read the letter.
One of the several suggestions in the letter was that air travel is exclusive, i.e. that air travellers are more likely to be rich people. I wondered if there was more detail to back up this claim of exclusivity, and it would be helpful to get the same ‘exclusivity’ measure for other forms of travel. Do you have the data?
The suggestion is that a small minority travel most – the second house on the Dordogne brigade
The same phenomena does not happen for trains etc
Although I accept commuters tend to be the better off – but economically we need people to cluster for work still so that is a price worth paying
That seems confused thinking. An acceptance that aggregated across all types of reasons for travel, that air travel is in fact more inclusive than train travel, in other words that the less well off are over-represented in train travel compared to air travel.
The nuance you’re suggesting is that for leisure travel only air is less inclusive than train travel. Is there data to support this claim?
I have a further question with this being a ‘research’ web-site. The letter has this quote: “Our research shows that. . .”
Has the research been published? If so, where?
Try here
http://blog.afreeride.org/wonkery/
As for confused thinking: assuming every comment I make in response to a comment here is pre-researched shows the absurdity of your nit picking
I disagree. I wanted to know if there was data indicating if air travel was more or less inclusive or democratic than other methods of travel.
You don’t know either way at the moment. It would have been ok to say that. Seriously.
Thank you for the link to the research article by the way.
I have provided no other data on other travel
Just come comment on rail and nothing at all on road
Oh dear, Richard. The crap you have to put up with. I speak in simple terms, but then I am only a simple retired agricultural engineer.
We as a society are busy poisoning ourselves with the pollution of burning fossil fuel, mainly from motor transport and air travel. See John Vidal’s piece in Saturday’s Guardian.
Anyone with a grain of commonsense will understand that we as a society must take steps to clean up our polluted atmosphere. Not allowing increasing air transport to deposit more bad air over London, while taking steps to get people out of their cars is the only way to start doing this.
The comparative wealth of air travelers has to be considered, but the main point is that the wealthy must not be allowed to pollute at the expense of the rest of us.
But perhaps I have got it wrong. Perhaps Andrew Carney is happy to continue to breath the output of the excesses of the rich.
And I have not even mentioned your point, Richard, that airlines do not pay fuel duty. (Rail operators do).
And I’m unemployed just back from a job interview, hence the time in the middle of the day.
I’m presuming David that you like this concept of a progressive consumption tax for air travel to meet the climate objectives. That’s fine. I’m not interested in that on this thread.
What I’m interested is in whether the social justice case for action in this way can be validated. Here’s some quotes from people who wrote the report or signed the letter to the newspaper:
“15% of the UK population are taking 70% of all our flights”
“these tax breaks almost exclusively benefit the richest”
“We can have a future in which flying is not reserved for the rich”
Looking at the Public experience of Air Travel survey on the gov.uk web-site, it says that 52% took no flights in the year. For the richest group that was 33% for the poorest it was 71%. So a third of the richest didn’t fly. Of the poorest group 7% still managed 3 flights or more.
Considering that the richest have always had more stuff, that doesn’t look too bad a spread to me. I would reckon that over half the population don’t ride a bicycle in a given year, and over half never visit a national park. I’ll also wager that at some time in the last 10 years roughly 15% of the population had 70% of the smart phones and the same was roughly true for the car in the last 100 years. Of course for the car and the smart phone production capacity expanded and ownership is a lot broader now. For air travel we don’t want capacity to expand so something must be done.
But the claim being made by the letter writers is that it is the nature of the subsidy structure for air travel which advantages the rich, not just the fact that the rich always have more stuff anyway. This claim has been made rather glibly and not corroborated so far. It could be validated or even invalidated if we found something that was expensive and unsubsidised ( a trip to LEGOLAND perhaps or similar priced park? or hard liquor which is taxed punitively ) and found that they had a much broader base of customers than the 70:15 ratio which is just so dreadful and awful
The subsidy does as a matter of fact most subsidies the richest
You are agreeing
Why is that just?
We’re arguing for a progressive tax system
What is wrong with that?
The fuel levy is nothing more than a stealth, unfair tax. It’s only purpose is to get money into the government coffers. So there is no subsidy, the stealth tax is not being applied because international treaties say it cannot. And if you think all the worlds airlines are going to buy into this then you should think again. The likely consequence is the death of the British airlines and probably some airports too. And a pretty tidy loss of jobs.
Anyway, have the brains trust that dreamt this idea up considered how it would be imolimented and what administrating this would email.
Maybe you don’t fly Hugh
I do
And you have to give your passport number to do so, in advance
Airlines already collect taxes and vast amounts of data
This would be like falling off a log in that case
Next problem?
I fly at least once a week, maybe more, both shorthaul and longhaul.
So tell me please how you intend to ensure that I pay more per flight depending on how much I have flown before? And I only enter ny passport details when I check in, not when I book. Will they take cash at the gate?
And what if I have more than one passport?
You can’t book without passport details
You can’t fly if data only supplied when checking in – security does not allow it
So you’re lying
I have no idea who Hugh is, but he is quite correct in what he says. Your claim that he is lying simply because he doesn’t back up your ludicrous ideas says all it needs to about your intellectual honesty.
Try turning up for a long haul flight and present your passport for the first time at the airport
I genuinely do not believe that possible now
If I am wrong, I am wrong, not intellectually dishonest
You can book without a passport – always have been able to do so. You are only required to have passport details when you check in on line and present it at check in.
Get your facts right before you call someone a liar.
Quite ludicrous, but not exactly unexpected.
That is not my experience
Whilst a worthy idea, I suspect that there are many vested interests at work which would put obstacles in the way. Not least they would ask what the details of this would be. How much would the levy be?
Here’s an idea. The signatories of your letter announce that they will donate the equivalent of what the levy would be to a eco-friendly charity, such as Greenpeace or the like, each time they fly. You are heading off to Denmark tomorrow and could start the ball rolling.
This would set a terrific example AND demonstrate exactly how much you would be asking other people to pay.
All the answers in the report I have linked to
I would disagree that air travel is tax free, and/or subsidised. The cost of my last ticket is as follows:
Airfare quoted amount: $140.00 USD
Taxes and fees: $518.30 USD
And that’s still subsidised
Read the report
What report? And how much should it be?
This ticket, by the way, is Heathrow to New York. One has to acknowledge that the ticket price itself is very low indeed, but there is a high level of competition on this route.
Linked in answers above
My apologies, but I couldn’t find a reference in the report.
Could you be more specific, or do you just feel that the price should be higher?
Read the full report linked in my answers above
You’re right Roderick. The question you asked isn’t answered in the report ( it’s at http://www.neweconomics.org/page/-/publications/FFL%2BModelling%2Bpaper.pdf for anyone who needs the link again ).
I did a rough calculation, after inflating some estimates Friends of the Earth did a few years ago to show what level of taxation on the industry would mirror that of motoring in the UK, thereby equalising the fuel duty, shopping and vat advantages of the air travel industry. It comes out at about £13billion a year to the Treasury. APD generates £3.2billion a year at the moment. There are around 230 million passenger movements through UK airports a year. So roughly you’d need to collect an extra £42 from all those to get an ‘unsubsidised’ industry. Many of those passengers are in transit to another country and pay nil APD so a higher amount would have to come from the rest.
Ah ha, you might say that taxation of motoring is not subsidy neutral but is a net contributor and if so I can’t give an estimate, nor can I account for the complexities of US taxes.
I suspect Richard has endorsed a report he hasn’t had time to read properly. The headline objective of the plan is to be revenue neutral ( although there is one which roughly doubles tax revenues in real terms ). That means presenting the report in his headline as something that removes the subsidies is simply incorrect, it just redistributes the subsidies.
I was wrong to suggest the plan as a progressive consumption tax in light of this, it was just the best way I could think of describing it; it’s more of a regressive subsidy plan.
Still waiting for corroboration that the current subsidy structure benefits the rich though. Airline travel would benefit the rich regardless of tax structure, as money let’s you do nice expensive things more often. The question as to whether this apparent social injustice of 15% of people having 70% of the action ratio would be different if there was no subsidy remains unanswered.
The aim was to improve the current scenario, not be essayist be optimal
I support improving the current scenario
I have no idea if your data is right
It would be good if Business & Holiday flyers had to pay the same amount of tax on plane fuel as the general population has to pay on their cars, 60% ? Or is this yet another tax scam for The Corporations.
Ed note: it is perfectly obvious that you are not here to engage in debate but to troll
This comment has been deleted as will all future comments
I came on to engage in debate. I wanted to know if we could validate the claim that the 15% of people taking 70% of flights ratio for air travel was a bad thing caused by the subsidy structure and therefore there was a social justice case for correcting this or whether the ratio is actually less than models suggest it should be and that given that airline travel is expensive it is more inclusive than you would expect.
I found someone who didn’t want to engage with that question, and who more than likely was supporting a report he hadn’t had time to read and digest.
And you should have found that was what the evidence suggested
But you did not like the finding
Or the recommendation
And it was the latter, in particular, that I supported
And the reason I want to engage with this 15:70 point is that you will find that air travellers are a pretty broad group already for something so expensive. Over one sixth of the frequent travellers ( 3+ return flights a year ) have incomes below 13519 according to the data, and air travel is more inclusive than in 2003 when the IPPR did a social breakdown of air travellers. Once we can get past that we can quickly get to the next point which is we need to keep the structure of APD broadly the same but roughly double the APD rates fairly quickly, and then increase it in line with a formula based around RPI plus the industry growth rate every year after that.
Tough on some but Climate Change Act goals achieved.
We don’t need a system that gives everyone rich or poor one free, nay subsidised, crack at polluting the planet every year whether they want it or not, based on some perceived social injustice about the income distribution of travellers using an expensive travel mode in 2014.
So you have a problem with a progressive tax system that ensures that heavy polluters pay?
As we now at the nub if the issue?
I’m proposing doubling the current rates, and this IS a progressive tax system as so many don’t fly. Light polluters pay a little, heavy polluters pay heavily. If you take 5 flights in 5 years you pay the same whether you save up and take them all at once or spread them out.
What I object to is this deformed love child of a paralysed sheep and a whirling dervish system being suggested in this report. Over half the population don’t fly at all. The busiest 15% take 70% of the flights as we know, but many of the busy flyers are not rich. On the income distribution the wealthiest 40% are taking 61% of flights ( table 1 of the report shows this ). That’s remarkably democratic for something expensive.
The suggestion means that people who don’t fly and people who fly a lot subsidise people in the middle who are taking one holiday in every one year period. This is social engineering, the idea that it’s fair to do something once and therefore fair to give that person more. That’s a subjective view of what’s fair and I don’t want to live in a society where people try to engineer and reward behaviours in this way.
Respectfully, value judgement is a key part of tax and policy design
We disagree on value judgements
Please don’t suggest that makes me wrong