Take a look: the proposed UK increase in airline taxes on UK-to-US flights seems rather excessive to me.
Ministers are planning to sharply increase the amount of money raised from airline taxes in a move that will net an extra £520 million annually. Airlines - already struggling to deal with record fuel prices - calculate that the tax per person on a flight to America or other long-haul destinations will rise from £40 to about £100 from next year. The levy will be passed on to passengers.That's a LOT. And I'm not liking the endless stream of enviro-pious news and measures coming out of the UK. What's going on over there?
Oh, I'm just LOVING this bit from the 6-page letter of complaint sent by the US Embassy to the British government:
"The Treasury's proposal, although cast as an environmental measure, appears in reality to constitute nothing more than a device for generating additional revenue from the airline community."Another instance of possible green-tinged overreach? Quelle surprise.
5 comments:
It will likely have the effect of switching air traffic (and tourism) from the UK to other countries. If I can save a lot of money by flying out of Paris or Amsterdam - I can do that. Have done it once already without a tax because my schedule fit and I could save £100.
Do these people just not understand practical economics? I don't see how discouraging tourism is really going to help anybody, seeing as tourism dollars are so important.
I think it's deperation on Gordon Brown's part. He's hooked on raising taxes and people are pushing back around here. He is less popular than Bush is, less popular than Major at the bottom. So this is a money grab from somebody who can't complain - tourists!
Of course, tourists can always decide to go elsewhere and thus vote with their feet...
Oh, and yes, the implosion of Gordon Brown is a spectacle seen even on this side of the pond. Among other things, he seems seriously handicapped by an apparently utter lack of personal charisma -- a death knell in this telegenic age when style trumps substance.
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