London Banter - View Single Post - "Heathrow and Gatwick airports: Ministers mull rail link" (twixt the two)

Bruce[_2_] · October 11th 11, 12:48 PM posted to uk.railway,uk.transport.london

d wrote:

On Tue, 11 Oct 2011 12:41:16 +0100
Bruce wrote:
My point was that the aircraft lobby has very little to do with how
many flights are operated. That is more likely to be dictated by
customer demand. The aircraft lobby, whoever they are, are probably

And customer demand is partially driven by advertising on the part of the
holiday companies and airlines. They're not merely bystanders in the process.

The main driver of demand appears to be the low cost of air travel.

Agreed.

What would choke off demand very effectively is an increase in the
cost of tickets, via an increase in the cost of fuel, taxation or some
levy on carbon emissions, or any combination thereof.

Well aircraft fuel should certainly be taxed. I see no reason why airlines
should have some special status over other transport operators.

I agree that it should be taxed, however there is a very good reason
why it isn't, which is because of international treaties.

The whole issue of taxation of transport is a minefield. For example,
annual spending on roads in the UK is just over £6 billion, yet the
revenue raised from road users is many times higher. Meanwhile, the
annual spending on rail is slightly higher at about £6.3 billion,
despite the fact that it provides less than 7% of transport versus the
93% that goes by road, yet the tax take from rail is minimal.

I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with road users being charged
more than the cost of building and maintaining the road network, but
taxes and duties on road users are between eleven and sixteen times
higher than roads expenditure (depending on whose figures you accept)
which seems hugely disproportionate.

Against that, the zero tax and duty on aviation fuel seems much too
far in the other direction. Having said that, I would not like to see
the cost of my annual flight to the Caribbean going up ...