APD discouraging business travellers
Britain's controversial Air Passenger Duty (APD) is hitting airlines and discouraging business travellers, Joey Seow, Singapore Airlines' (SIA) UK manager, said.
He said SIA was a long term player in the UK market and it wanted to go on working with the British government.
But the recent structural changes to the APD are "greatly impacting long range carriers like Singapore Airlines and threaten to harm the British economy," he said.
Mr Seow was speaking at the airline's annual reception in the House of Commons attended by MPs, including the UK aviation minister Jim Fitzpatrick.
Mr Seow said the new banding system which taxes people more the further they travel had raised tax paid on flights to Singapore by 112%.
 |
|
Joey Seow |
This made passengers flying from Britain "amongst the most heavily taxed in the world."
He added: "The taxation level impacts our customers. A passenger booking today will find that the UK taxes equate to 15.5% of his airfare.
"In two years' time, under the APD as it currently stands, this will increase to 24.2%, assuming all other fare parts remain the same."
Mr Seow said the tax was making Britain a less desirable place to visit and also discouraging business people from travelling "at a time when seeking new opportunities for growth abroad is so important."
He pointed out that The Dutch government had just repealed its travel tax after research showed it would lose the economy €1.3bn and lead to a drop in tourism.
Mr Seow said: "Help us help the UK by reviewing the APD, undoing the sharp rise in air passenger tax and giving a boost to British tourism and business."
Mr Fitzpatrick indicted in his reply that there were no plans to drop or change APD.
Print
Email this page
Comments
SQ policy
While I agree that the tax take from this government is reaching pandemic proportions, it's ironic that SQ are the ones sounding like they are hard done by. My agency has a policy of avoiding SQ where possible, they don't allow Y class seating allocation on the GDS but do on the web, they ADM for anything and everything, and despite the best efforts of their sales team in the UK, head office in Singapore are completely unresponsive to demands for sanity.
Moaning snobs
The only thing affecting SIA's sales are their stupid ticketing policies. Maybe if the pretentious t***s actually let the entire trade sell their tickets their sales figures wouldn't be down the toilet. But oh no, as usual they can't see beyond their toffy noses and therefore fob their disaster off on the latest moan-word...
Post new comment