Airline Passenger Duty is to be scrutinised on 2 legal grounds in a challange mounted by the Federation of Tour Operators. Firstly it is claimed that the UK Government can not impose charges solely to exit or enter the UK, charges can only be made for use of an airport service. Secondly the manner in which the recent doubling of APD was introduced is being called into question. Only seven weeks notice was given and passengers who had already booked were still liable for the additional tax.

I also picked up on the point made in the article that APD is hardly an environmentally friendly tax as it is each individual passenger who is charged rather than the plane, it was not exactly an incentive to have a fuel efficient, lower emissions plane full of passengers.

It will be interesting to see what happens. I have always thought that APD should be earmarked for spending on environmentally beneficial projects such as improving public transport.

tags: UK, united-kingdom, airlines, tax, APD, airline-passenger-duty, duties