Travel insurance customers should be prepared for an increase in their air travel expenses.
Bills for travelling via airlines are set to increase owing to a predictable rise in Air Passenger Duty (APD). However, the increase in APD will be proportional to the rise in inflation, it has been declared by the ABTA.
Frances Tuke, a spokesperson for ABTA, said: "There is a switch being proposed from APD to per plane duty that we broadly agree with, but what we don't know is what level that will be set at, and what we're very keen to make sure is that people are not taxed out of the skies because that would be detrimental both to the health of the economy and the tax take."
She acknowledged the benefits of this move to make air travel more eco-friendly. However, if not handled properly it could be detrimental to the economy, she added.
In last week's emergency Budget, chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne announced his plans to raise £3.8 billion by 2015-16 through air travel.
At present, rises to the ADP have already been put in place until November and are set to increase in accordance with inflation rates. However, recent statistics indicate that there has been a 0.3 per cent decrease in inflation from April to May this year.
Although ABTA had welcomed Mr Osborne's announcement to review air travel taxes, the aviation authority was disappointed that the government was not going to reconsider the November increases to APD.
The move is set to generate returns that would see revenue increase from the current £1.9 billion to £3.8 billion by 2015-16.
Mark Tanzer, ABTA chief executive said: "Travel matters to our economy - aviation contributes more than £11 billion in GDP, to jobs - 700,000 British jobs depend on aviation - and the welfare of hardworking people - nearly 40 million holidays were taken abroad in 2009 by British citizens." |
0 comments
