Air passenger duty to rise under Liberal Democrats

Air passenger duty will rise an average of 50 per cent if the Liberal Democrats win the General Election on Wednesday.

The Party plans to replace the passenger tax with a tax on aircraft to raise an extra £3 billion a year for government coffers.

The Conservatives will also introduce a per plane tax but they have not announced plans to increase revenue from air passenger duty; they are also the only party to reveal plans to extend the air passenger duty to private jets.

Both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives would tax cargo as well as passengers; at the moment cargo is exempt from air passenger duty.

A spokeswoman for the Liberal Democrats has confirmed that the Party's proposed changes to air passenger duty will lead to an increase in ticket prices of about £7 per passenger for short-haul flights and £9 per passenger for medium-haul flights.

The Liberal Democrats do not believe that air travel is taxed enough, even though Air Passenger Duty has risen more than 300 per cent in less than four years.

The Party believes that airline passengers should pay even more for the environmental damage caused and it hopes higher taxation for domestic and short-haul flights will encourage holidaymakers to switch to less polluting forms of transport.

Aviation experts are concerned that although the per plane tax is designed to encourage airlines to fill all the seats on an aircraft, and therefore reduce the amount of environmental damage per passenger, it will threaten holiday flights from regional airports.

If airlines are penalised for operating planes with part loads, they will be discouraged from flying from the least popular UK airports.

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