Welcome to A Fair Tax on Flying – the campaign to reduce the UK's Air Passenger Duty (APD). With a general election less than a year away, it has never been more important to keep the pressure up on the Government to lower this harmful tax. Please read on to discover why APD is so damaging for the UK.

Find out more about our new Scrap the Tax on Family Flights Campaign here.

News Update!
In the 2014 Autumn Statement Chancellor George Osborne announced that APD will scrapped on children's flights (for under 12s from 1st May 2015 and under 16s from 1st March 2016).
Read our full statement here.

Scrap the Tax on Family Flights

The UK's Air Passenger Duty (APD) is the highest passenger tax on flying in the world. It is a tax on business activity, tourism and families, not just aviation – which is why only a handful of countries in the EU levy a passenger tax on international air travel. Germany, France, Italy and Austria charge a comparable tax, yet the level of UK APD is considerably higher than our European rivals. On average, the UK pays five times more passenger departure tax than the other EU countries that levy such a charge.

We believe APD is making UK goods and services more expensive, discouraging inbound tourists and investment and making the family holiday abroad and visiting friends and relatives overseas less affordable. That’s why A Fair Tax on Flying is campaigning for reform of APD.

Research published by PwC shows that significantly reducing or abolishing APD would provide an immediate and lasting boost to growth and not cost the Exchequer a penny! In light of this new analysis, we are campaigning for Government action on APD.

Over 200,000 people have now written to their local MP about APD. If you're a UK resident why not tell your MP directly what you think? Find your MP here. Thanks for visiting the site.

A Fair Tax on Flying campaign has set out five tests against which we believe policy-making on APD changes should be judged. These are:

  • Ensuring UK aviation is globally competitive: APD is the highest departure tax anywhere in the world. We would encourage the Government to look at our European rivals – and what levels of equivalent departure tax our closest competitors are levying – as a gauge of the kind of levels that would make the UK more globally competitive.
  • Ongoing evaluation of the impact of APD across the entirety of the British Isles, Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland: Policy decisions around APD must be framed within the context of changes in departure taxes in neighbouring nations and the effect that these will undoubtedly have upon Britain’s competitiveness by comparison.
  • Evidence-based policy-making: The Government should undertake rigorous dynamic modelling so that the consequences of APD changes across all sectors of the economy and British society are fully quantified and understood.
  • Delivering consistency and fairness: APD should be judged on how it impacts the least well-off and those whose need for aviation is considered a necessity. For example, the impact of ‘double-APD’ on domestic flights and the ongoing high cost for Diaspora communities, despite planned changes to take effect in 2015, should be examined more thoroughly and resolved.
  • Taking a long-term perspective: The Government should be encouraged to take a long-term approach to APD policy-making, assessing the impacts of APD changes across an entire Parliament and according to the Government’s own measures of Tax Policy.