i'll pop the cheque in the post , now which house number is it?? 11 or 10 ?

Just make sure the cheque is folded a few times, popped in a small envelope, coz size matters now. oh, but there won't be any Post Offices left soon....silly me forgetting that small detail.

Sanji

Let's not forget that flying has never been cheaper and that that does have an environmental impact. We're all flying much more frequently than ever before. I first flew from Liverpool to Aberdeen in 1971 and it cost me just just over £100 return - I remember it well because I was only earning £11.50 a week in a gap year job! But I had little option but to grit my teeth and pay it out of what I saving towards University because I needed to be up there for a University interview and back down again very quickly for another closer to home and I'd never have managed it in time by train. I'd never flown anywhere before, let alone flying alone. It was an exciting adventure! Last month I did the same trip 35 years later - I now live up here - and it cost me Just under £40 return!

Yes, flat rate taxes are a blunt instrument but what is the alternative? Means testing? Paying per mile and adding on greater administrative costs to collect it. Cheap air travel is not a right and personally I resent far more the much greater percentage of my taxes that go on supporting other things including motorway building and wars to ensure that car drivers using them can still fill-up their cars with petrol. At least with a tax on plane travel I have the choice as to whether I fly and, therefore, whether I pay it or not. I don't run a car but have no choice at all about the amount of my tax money that goes on building yet more motorways for those who do.

SM

Cheap flights have come about because of competition, which we were all told would be a good thing,
Don't you use a bus that travels on motorways, don't you ride a bike on roads.? Don't you want to invest in an infrastructure that makes getting from A to B as quickly and conveniently as possible.? Or would you have us all travelling on cobble stone I thought we got rid of the horse and cart some time ago.!

Don't forget that we all have to pay up and shut up for things that we might not use, My son and his wife have no children and probably will never have any, but they both pay to educate other peoples, Just like childless people paid for you to be educated and you probably didn't have to acquire a huge debt, that will take years to pay off, for going to University.

I can remember buying my first video recorder, costing well over £300, and today I can pick one up with better specs, for less than £100 this has occurred because of competition.

How can you build airports and promote air travel and then put a blunt tax on the people who use them?
If you want to live in a global world, and especially if you run a business, then you have to fly, simple, no choice.

The motorists pay heavily to use their cars, the Chancellor knows that he cannot put much more upon them, so, let's hit the air passengers instead, but firstly, the government should remember that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

Sanjiii

Just for clarification for some people.

The tax is for departing the UK only so isnt payable twice on a return flight.

Many would see travel as a luxury item and it is still exempt for VAT ( for now). Nearly every tax system has an element of unfairness, as a previous poster the real cost of flying has come down so maybe taxing the increase in flights that people are taking isnt so unfair.

Kind Regards
Stewart

I can remember buying my first video recorder, costing well over £300, and today I can pick one up with better specs, for less than £100 this has occurred because of competition.

No it hasn't - airfares have become cheaper because of both competition and because many of us are prepared to accept crummy service from the likes of Ryannair in return for dirt cheap fares but in the case of technology, 'early adopters' who must have the latest gadgets always pay more because the opening price for new technology is based on the need for manufacturers to recover their research and development costs as quickly as possible.

It's the same in the medicinal drug world too - the patent and licensing system enables manufacturers to charge high prices to recover their development costs in the early years after a new drug is released on the market. Their costings take account of how much they spent in developing the drug and how much they think they'll sell while they have a monopoly. Generic drugs are cheaper because the drug is already tried and tested and the 'copycat' manufacturers have no R&D costs to recover.

Without the patenting system and the urge of some to people to have the latest 'toy' as soon as it comes out regardless of the cost, there would be no incentive for any manufacturer to develop new products because they would have no way of recovering the development costs. As for me I don't mind waiting for the 'cutting edge' to become blunt - so I only paid £49 for my first DVD player being quite happy with the VHS video (and I bet the early Betamax adopters wished they'd waited a bit too!) and I won't be buying a plasma screen TV until the next big thing is about to come out and I can pick one of them up for song too. In another couple of years the prices will drop like a stone - not because of competition but because the development costs will have been recovered by then and the 'generic' manufacturers will be turning them out by the million.
And no doubt the 'early adopter's will already be forking out thousands for the next costly innovation by then.

SM

PS Sanji, I always travel by train on inter-city journeys and would happily pay for greater investment in the railroad - about time too!) and only use the bus for local journeys on suburban roads long paid for and maintained out of my council tax which I don't begrudge at all - I reckon I get good service for it :-)

The government have no interest in investing in the rail industry they make the decisions and we have to abide by them, however they have actively encouraged the expansion of both road networks and cheap air travel.

Presumably most of your consumerables i.e your food and your 49 pound DVD player were transported by road anyway, so even if you don't run a car you are a consumer of goods which travel by road.

You say is there an alternative? Well I for one would be quite happy not to see mange tout transported by air from Thailand in the supermarkets as a start.

they have actively encouraged the expansion of both road networks and cheap air travel.

But have presumably seen the error of their ways and are now trying to curb air travel with an increase in taxes. And, yes, I am concerned about 'food miles' and admit that I am lucky to live in a small town in a rural area so that I can eat well on seasonal veg, most of which will have been grown down the road from me - I can see the brussel sprouts we'll be eating with our turkey still growing in the fields on the edge of where I live - the potatoes too. And when the Brussels are harvested, the sheep will be turned out to graze on the stalks and in turn I'll enjoy eating them too. I, too, refuse to buy veg that has been airfreighted in from the far east and eat locally caught fish and seafood rather than imported tiger prawns. Though it wouldn't be Christmas without tangerines so I confess that, yes, I will be buying them in this year as usual :-)

But seriously, I do think that we have to wake up to the fact that we do live in a polluted world and that we are using up non-renewable resources with such gusto that unless we start doing something about it soon it could so easily turn out to be too late. I want future generations to be able to enjoy living on our planet as much as I have done and if that means starting to curb our love affair with the internal combustion engine and cheap air travel and holidays abroad then perhaps that's what we have to do. I'm not asking everybody to suddenly return to living some sort of 'Good Life' self-sufficient existence but I am asking people to stop regarding cheap air travel as our God-given right and to start thinking about the longterm costs, and I don't mean just financially, of the sort of lifestyle that we literally seem to take for granted these days without weighing up what we might lose in the long run.

SM

I don't for a moment beleive they have 'seen the error in their ways' it is just a way to claw in more tax from the working (wo)man who are the backbone of the economy.

I also have been recycling since before it was either "trendy" or "compulsory" as it is now with my microchipped wheelie bin. Well do I remember the hollow ring of my bottles dropping in the bottle bank 20 odd years ago when they were some of the few going in.

Most of us are well aware of the pollution problems as half of the kids in our schools have asthma (including both of mine ) despite their being no history of it in my family.

Loads of families can only afford one holiday a year and this is a way of making it even more difficult for them. So much for family values. No doubt the politicians are still flying first class at our expense, perhaps they should try ryanair!

Doe

Government seeing the errors of their ways?, sorry Sma nothing personal, but that has just made me laugh, the government seeing the error of their ways .
The government don't build airports, the owners of Britain's airports apply for planning permission that the government have approved in the past and are quite willing to approve in the future, despite pleas from organisations like Green Peace and Friends of the Earth.
It has given the go-ahead for an extra runway at Stansted and set out plans for the expansion of Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Bristol and Cardiff airports.
It's a stealth tax under the cloak of environmental issues"¦pure and simple.

I suggest you read THIS

Airport expansion means more jobs, and the more people employed means more money in the Governments pocket also, if we all started eating home grown produce and cut the amount of air freight down, which is not a bad thing to suggest, then who exactly are the third world countries going to sell and export their produce too? they already have to compete in an unfair world.
Do we deprive them of being self sufficient and lifting themselves out of poverty.?

We are part of Europe, like it or not, and the European Parliment approved this tax, therefore, if we are not supposed to fly and you don't want motorways, then how exactly are we (UK) supposed to trade with our European partners.?
Despite the increased volume of vehicles on the motorways, the statistics for fatalities have decreased, thanks to safety components being incorporated into modern day vehicles and the investment put into our motorway system.
I'm afraid it is a double-edged sword.

America, China, India and Russia are the villains of pollution, America produces a quarter of the greenhouse gases that are heating up the planet, yet they refuse to sign up to the Kyote protocol.

So, taking all that into consideration, YES, it is my god dam right to fly and take advantage of the cheap flights that competition have produced.

Thank our dear friend Maggie Thatcher, she indoctrinated us all that competition would be a good thing.!

Nothing personal Sma"¦and Happy Christmas.

Sanjiiii

Flight tax delays:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2499932,00.html

Seems to be different than we thought. They are saying 5 pounds short haul and 20 pounds long haul and different rates for holiday and business travellers.

I am due to pay for my flight on thursday i'll let you know the outcome.

It only effects flights taken from 1 Feb so you'll not have to pay anymore if you fly before then as all duties were included in your ticket price.

For clarity the current rates which have applied since 2001 are :-

Reduced rate (economy travel)
£5 short Haul (mostly EU travel)
£20 long haul

Standard rate (premium travel - from reading the customs web site this means any paid for premium service such as business, first class or even the premium economy services offered by charter airlines).

£10 short Haul (mostly EU travel)
£40 long haul

For flights taken from 1/2/07 onwards these duties are doubled so for flights booked before the new rates were included in your ticket price you will have to make a further payment at the airport of another £5 or £20 for economy or £10 or £40 for premium.

Must admit, having to pay £80 duty for sitting in a charter premium cabin on a long haul flight would certainly put me off booking an upgrade.

If you are given a free upgrade at the airport this freebie does not attract the higher standard rate and you would just pay the reduced rate for economy.

I have just received an e-mail from First Choice customer services.

I was advised the new tax applies to bookings made after 1st February 2007 and as my holiday booked for 22nd February 2007 was booked in April this year, I will not have to pay more.

Now I am confused and worried that I will have to hand over cash at the same time I hand over my tickets and passport at check-in.

I would love to know what the "official" definition of "long-haul" is ?? The airlines treat long-haul as flights that the crew cannot legally operate there and back in a single duty day.

wonder if the government have the same rules ??

Gambia / Egypt etc are treated by MYT/FCA/Mon etc as short-haul flights although they feature in "Tropical and Worldwide" Brochures. Wonder what level of tax will be applied???

I think I can guess.!!!!!!

Sydney, in your case it might be different as you have booked through a tour operator which might make a difference, you might find you dont have to pay it because of contract reasons between them and you when you payed for your holiday.

Per HMRC web site the definition of short haul is all EU countries plus their dependant islands like the Canaries, Balearics, Scilly, Sardinia, Corsica etc. Turkey is also included for some reason.

Gambia and egypt are therefore not included in short haul.

And Norway, Iceland and Switzerland.

Also remember for domestic flights you pay it twice.

Kind Regards
Stewart