Muswell Hill

I was reading an article today on the telegraph about airlines cancelling flights due to the APD.

You can read it here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/tr...el-routes.html

It says that the Dutch have scrapped all flight taxes on flights to/from Holland. Has anyone flown to/from Holland recently and noticed a fall in flight costs?

I also looked up the APD in google and found this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Passenger_Duty

It seems that by November APD will be going up again, so for my family of 4 we will pay 300 quid for the privilege of flying to Gatwick. I might start to look at a flight to Europe and connecting to the UK.....

Pashtun

Hey, I used to live there! In Muswell Hill....

lansbury

That will not save all the APD as you will still pay it on the flight to Europe but it will be cheaper.

My sons always fly to Amsterdam and connect to a US flight from there. There always seem to be good deals going on the KLM/Delta (Northwest) code shares.

The Horticulturalist

That's a shocking amount of additional tax to whack onto passengers, by next year it will be £480 tax for our family of four if we fly from the USA to the UK.
I might try via Amsterdam to see if it's cheaper!

While I was reading the article you posted I saw a link to this story about Ryanair planning on having standing passengers.........

DMDA

RyanAir are unbelievable. I can certainly see them shoe horning in an extra 50% but I bet the price reduction gets lost somewhere along the way.

I was talking earlier today with a friend who flies a lot for work. On a recent RyanAir flight he accidentally dropped his wallet but didn't realise until he got home. He called them up and fortunately they had found it and offered to post it to him for £7. He was going back through the same airport a few days later so he just said he'd collect it. When he got there they made him pay a £5 retrieval fee because they had to store it in a secure place for him!

The Horticulturalist

They are money grabbing gits

I've only flown with Ryanair once and that was enough. It was like being on a Northern Line tube train with wings.....

Ash UK/US

Weird you should post this, yesterday and today I have been looking at flights for Feb next year, all the better prices are flying via Amsterdam with KLM/NWA.

The Horticulturalist

The apparent purpose of the APD tax hike was to reduce carbon emmissions, it looks like all they are going to acheive is an increace in traffic for other european airports and doing nothing for overall emissions, though I'm sure they will claim their plan has worked anyway!

lansbury

With immaculate timing for this thread Lufthansa has just announced it is suspending its Portland/Frankfurt service from September and Delta (NWA) has informed PDX that their Amsterdam service is at risk as well.

Bluegrass Lass

While reading that story, I happened to come across this one, which I found incredibly funny!

scrubbedexpat091

Governments need to learn if you raise taxes too much, people stop using the services and buying goods etc.

When I make trips home to the US, I always fly out of Bellingham to avoid paying the higher taxes on flights originating in Canada and based on the amount of BC license plates in the parking lot I am not alone.

Bluegrass Lass

Wasn't that the theory behind it though? Aren't they trying to reduce air travel because of those pesky carbon emissions? So ultimately, i wonder if it's the goal to stop air travel completely?

The Horticulturalist

What they'll no doubt say is that they've been succesful at reducing emissions and air traffic in the UK, but if all they've really done is force people to travel via other airports then overall emissions may not be impacted at all.

It seems to fly in the face of their efforts to expand Stansted and Heathrow though

tonrob

Did I read somewhere that they subsequently gave that guy a job, or did I just dream that...?