Government urged to raise flight taxes to reduce environmental damage

Responsible Travel calls for a ‘Green Flying Duty’ to fund more sustainable transport

A travel firm is calling for higher taxes for airline passengers to reduce environmental damage.

Responsible Travel says Air Passenger Duty (APD) – the tax on flying from airports in the UK – should increase sharply, particularly for domestic flights and travel in any class other than basic economy.

The agency, based in Brighton, is also urging the government to re-name APD “Green Flying Duty”.

Responsible Travel claims that taxpayers subsidise aviation by £240 per household annually. It has launched a manifesto urging higher taxes to reduce demand for aviation until electric aircraft can be developed.

The first step, says the firm, should be a “small rise” for APD in economy class, currently £13 for European journeys from Britain and £78 for longer trips. They apply only on outbound flights.

Passengers who fly domestically pay £26 for a return flight, but Responsible Travel wants this to be higher “to discourage domestic flying”.

Any increase would hit British Airways, easyJet and Flybe, which have the biggest domestic networks.

Recent APD rises have been focused on higher classes of travel and executive jets, which proportionately burn far more fossil fuel per passenger.

But the firm’s chief executive, Justin Francis, says they should increase further.

“By renaming APD as the Green Flying Duty we make it very clear that this an environmental tax,” he says.

APD raises around £3bn a year. Francis says the tax collected should be ring-fenced for research and development in electric planes “and to improve railway connectivity”.

High Speed 2 (HS2), the proposed rail link between London, the Midlands and the north, is expected to reduce domestic air travel – but its future is in doubt because of cost and time overruns. In addition, the Green Party is campaigning against HS2.

Responsible Travel sells thousands of trips each year, many of them to long-haul destinations.

Francis said: “There is still a role for international tourism involving a flight. We advocate staying longer and taking fewer flights.”

Neil Robinson, chair of sustainable aviation at Airlines UK, said; “Climate change is a clear and pressing issue for people, businesses and governments across the world, and we welcome the leadership shown by ministers in legislating for the UK to be net zero by 2050.

"By investing tens of billions of pounds in new, cleaner aircraft we have already decoupled growth in aviation from growth in emissions, and as a global industry we have a long established plan to halve our emissions by 2050.”

The mainstream travel industry has been campaigning for many years against APD, with some success: the tax was removed for travellers under 16, and the two highest bands, for very long journeys, were removed.

Aviation has historically expanded at a rate of four or five per cent annually.

According to a UBS survey earlier this month, one in five passengers say they are flying less than they were a year earlier – though for British travellers the figure is one in six.

The UK government says tackling climate change is a key requirement of future growth.