BA boss: Don’t raise air taxes
Leave us be: Willie Walsh has called on the Chancellor to abandon plans to more than double taxes on certain flights
11 April 2012
The boss of British Airways has called on the Chancellor to abandon plans to more than double taxes on certain flights.
Willie Walsh said the Chancellor's latest shake-up of air passenger duty, announced in last November's
Pre-Budget Report, would put the tax on some flights up by 112%, and would put £280 on the cost of a family holiday to the Caribbean.
Walsh called on Darling to heed the Dutch example where the new flights tax was scrapped to stimulate the economy. The Treasury originally wanted to convert APD into an aviation tax, putting a per-plane levy on airlines rather than charge them per passenger.
