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Air Tax Hikes Will Price Foreign Travel By Brits Out Of Skies Caribbean Destinations May Suffer As Cost Expected To Soar

Posted by CaribShout on July 10, 2009 at 8:11pm
Caribbean destinations looking for economic relief from an upturn in the British economy to trigger a return of English tourists may have something else to contend with. It’s the effect of the planned hike in Britain’s Air Passenger Duty, commonly called the “air tax,” according to travel industry experts and commentators in London. Call it a double whammy hitting the Caribbean’s tourism industry. First it was the global economic crisis that sent tourism arrivals in the Bahamas, Jamaica, Antigua, St. Lucia, Barbados, Grenada and its neighbors plummeting into the cellar. Now, it’s the British government’s tax which may force at least 1.5 million or as many as 5 million British tourists to abandon their plans to enjoy holidays in the Caribbean, Europe, North America and elsewhere. Less than two weeks after officials of the Caribbean Tourism Organization and members of its Council of Ministers used their Caribbean tourism week of activities in New York to complain bitterly about the damaging fall-out from the British Government’s air tax, a report of that country’s Department of Transportation warned that the “green tax” on flying could take as many as five million people out of the travel market. In addition, a former Labor Government cabinet Minister, Brian Wilson, travel executives in London and other parts the United Kingdom, officials of the TaxPayers Alliance and a lobbying group, Flying Matters, are all condemning the Gordon Brown Administration, charging that when the hikes in the air tax become effective in November they would have a damaging effect on travel by pricing millions of people out of foreign travel market. The tax hike, which is to be introduced in two stages, would amount in some cases to a doubling of existing charges. Its stated goal is to aid environmental programs, specifically climate change. But Wilson who is now Chairman of Flying Matters, an aviation lobbying organization, lambasted the Brown Government, insisting that the action would make foreign travel to the Caribbean, the U.S., Pacific and other regions all but unaffordable by the less well-off. “These figures show how millions of ordinary families will be priced out of flying by these taxes,” the former cabinet minister said. “There is no justification for such a regressive measure. Returning air travel to the preserve of a wealthy elite is likely to go down like a lead balloon with the electorate.” Matthew Sinclair, an official of Tax Payers Alliance in the United Kingdom, agreed. “In the decades to come millions of families are going to miss out on foreign holidays because of unfair hikes in taxes on flying,” Sinclair said. “Cheap flights are an incredible opportunity for more people than ever to enjoy themselves and see the world. For that opportunity to be sacrificed just to get the Government a little extra revenue, and make a reduction in emissions that is insignificant compared to the massive increases in other countries building huge new coal power plants almost weekly is outrageous.” According to the plans announced by the Brown administration, passengers flying to Jamaica, St. Lucia St. Vincent, Antigua or any of their Caribbean neighbors will be forced to a pay a tax of 75 pounds sterling, an increase of 87.5%. In effect, the jump in the air tax would mean that a family of four going to St. Vincent, Antigua or Barbados, for instance, would have to pay 300 pounds extra in taxes. On the other hand, people flying to New York, Los Angeles, Miami or other points in the U.S. would pay an extra tax of 60 pounds, a 50 per cent jump. Those going to Australia or New Zealand would pay even more, 85 pounds sterling per person, an increase of 112.5%. When CTO Council of Ministers met in Manhattan last month many of the Caribbean tourism Ministers spoke out against the tax and they vowed to fight it. CTO’s interim Secretary-General, Hugh Riley, said at a news conference that the tax would impose a burden on British travelers to the region. But the tax increases aren’t the only deterrent to foreign travel by “Brits” to the Caribbean. Sir David Normington, the top civil servant in the Home Office in London, has acknowledged that the 72 pounds sterling British citizens must now pay to get a passport was “quite a sizeable sum” for millions of families across the land. In 1994, a British passport cost 18 pounds. The Air Passenger Tax was first introduced in the United Kingdom in 1994 and it was pegged at five pounds sterling for flights to Europe and 10 pounds to the Caribbean and North America. The Labor Government increased the tax to the point where it now brings in 2 billion pounds a year. Travelers flying internally in the United Kingdom will soon have to pay a 12 pound tax each way on a round trip ticket. That explains why Jason Groves, political editor of the Express newspaper in London, warned that “millions of holiday makers face being priced out of the skies” by Labor’s new taxes on flights.”

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