The Scottish government is abandoning plans to reduce and eventually eliminate the UK Air Passenger Duty at Scottish airports, citing climate change.
In 2016, the Scottish National Party (SNP) promised to reduce the pricey UK departure tax, which can run as high as $289 per ticket, first by 50% and eventually abolish it. At the time, the SNP argued that this high tax made finding and keeping international routes difficult out of Scottish airports. The reduction and eventual scrapping of this tax was intended to promote tourism.
But last month, Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon declared a “climate emergency” and SNP has now announced that scrapping the departure tax in Scotland is incomparable with its ambitious climate agenda. Critics had pointed to reduction in departure tax as a gift to the wealthy and an encouragement of pollution.
While Scottish Conservatives accuse SNP of caving to “environmental extremists”, Labour and Green Party members of the Scottish Parliament applauded the move. Labour spokesperson Colin Smyth framed the issue in class terms to the Financial Times.
A tax cut that benefits the richest the most and increases emissions was never the right policy.
Meanwhile, Tory shadow Finance Secretary Murdo Fraser framed the issue in finance terms:
Cutting ADT on long-haul flights has huge potential to boost our economy, make money for the tourism industry, and generate business.
CONCLUSION
As Scotland wrestles over whether its focus should be on attempting to address climate change or promoting tourism, it has chosen to prioritize climate change. Only time will tell whether this was the smarter choice.
Has the pricey UK Air Passenger Duty ever stopped you from visiting Scotland or other parts of the United Kingdom?
I still don’t understand why they haven’t made it be a % of net fare.
On a $6000 full fare J ticket the taxes don’t matter… so you can raise them.. but on a Ryanair flight or say cheap TATL economy where £210 out of a £280 fare is tax that’s crazy
It hasn’t stopped me from visiting the UK, but it has prompted me to take a flight from Edinburgh to Amsterdam to fly back to the US to reduce the tax.
Kind of defeats the climate change aspects I’d think.
Collecting extra taxes isn’t going to help climate change. This is rubbish.
If the price of flying is higher, people fly less and either don’t travel or use a different transport mode.
If they don’t travel, that’s fewer emissions.
Different transport mode is also likely to be fewer emissions.
Long haul APD tax being more than short haul will shift some people from a LH holiday to a SH one, again less emissions.
So yeah, it helps.
“If the price of flying is higher, people fly less and either don’t travel or use a different transport mode.”
Except that doesn’t really work unless everybody enacts the same scheme. Otherwise, you get workarounds like flying from the UK to Amsterdam or Paris and then taking a long-haul flight from there. If reducing emissions is important to you, that does nothing to reduce them, and in fact arguably increases them due to lengthening the overall journey.
No, it doesn’t, Einstein.
This summer, I’m flying from the US to Edinburgh, in J. On the way back, I’ll catch a short hop from Edinburgh to Dublin (almost zero in fees), then will home (in J) on a separate ticket from Dublin (again, virtually zero fees).
Net effect: I will end up paying virtually nothing in their fees, I will be taking two flights, not one = double the carbon emissions that they claim to be so concerned about. Brilliant policy they have.
You are both seeing this from an American/foreign perspective, not a UK one.
Foreign travellers are about 1/3 of the O/D passengers at UK airports compared to 2/3 UK residents.
Foreign travellers, who are on mileage tickets, who are travel hackers and who will add in a unprotected connection to drop the taxes is going to be a very very small proportion of overall travellers.
How many extra 737s are doing 200 mile hops to Amsterdam and Dublin because of Non-UK travellers open jawing, or UK residents positioning?
How many extra long haul widebodies would the market tend towards if Economy prices dropped 15% or the airlines could keep a load more from their cheap fares! Even a 5% boost to net yields in the premium cabins is very useful!
So yes, the tax does make your emissions go up.
But for the average traveller? absolutely APD means they buy less airfare, less long haul airfare, and the emissions are lower than otherwise because of it.
They could ban any activity that creates emissions—poof—problem solved. Sounds like a fun way to live.
The fees are insane. I prefer the system of carbon offsetting. But it’s a bit hard to justify doing it for flights ex UK, because the departure tax is so outrageous ( and it has absolutely nothing to do with being more green.,,it’s merely a govt ripoff tax).
Take the train to Amsterdam and get a flight from there: it saves hundreds of £££