General News
Below are links to stories of general interest in relation to aviation and airports.
New analysis by the Green Alliance makes the case for raising more tax revenue from aviation
A short briefing paper on taxing UK aviation has been prepared by the Green Alliance. The analysis forecasts revenues of £2.5 billion per year which could be raised from aviation, currently undertaxed compared to road fuel. The UK aviation sector enjoys historic tax exemptions worth £10 billion a year, because it does not pay fuel duty and VAT is not paid on airline tickets. Their briefing is based on detailed financial analysis by the PSI.
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Dilemma: How do you define unneccesary travel?
With plane, train and automobile emissions still increasing, are we being honest with ourselves about how and how often we travel? Matilda Lee - writing in the Ecologist - looks at the bare necessities of transport. How many of the 200 million passengers using British airports every year are boarding flights for weekend shopping trips to New York and Bank Holidays in sunny countries? How many are love miles? Could we ration flights?
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Signs of growth lift the mood in business aviation
At the European Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition show in Geneva in May, the business aviation sector was more optimistic than they had been for a long time. Their aircraft orders, utilisation and expectations of continued growth all rising. Business aviation traffic was up 11% in March compared with the same month last year. That compares with a fall of 14% in 2009 as a whole from the year before.
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CAA data for May: UK passengers down -5.4%
CAA figures show that UK passengers fell by -5.4% in May, compared to May 2009. This was partly due to the BA strike, and a brief reappearance of the volcanic ash. Heathrow was down by -3.1%; Gatwick down by - 4.1%; Stansted down -1.4%; Manchester down - 8.2%; Birmingham down - 5.2%. Luton down - 6.9%; Edinburgh down - 11.5%; Glasgow down - 13.7%; Newcastle down - 4.9%; Belfast internal down - 19.4%; Leeds Bradford UP + 4.9%; Aberdeendown - 9.8% and so on.
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Demand for air travel in Russia growing at more than 20%
Last year, Russian air travel was down significantly in the 1st half of the year, before stabilising in the 2nd half. However, in 2010, traffic is growing rapidly once more and in May total capacity at Russian airports was up 20% compared with a year ago. Moscow’s 3 airports account for 52.4% of all Russian airport capacity. Domestic scheduled capacity was up 24% in May. The top 3 airlines. S7, Aeroflot and UTair, share around 47% of the total market.
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ABTA: operators and agents claim they should get ash cash too !
ABTA has issued a statement calling on the Government to encompass all areas of the travel industry when it looks at ash cloud compensation packages. Airlines have already met with senior government figures to demand compensation. Tour operators and travel agents also worked hard to sort out the problems and get people home. Theresa Villiers has said 'the Government have not ruled out providing support for airlines'".
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Germany will keep a new environment levy on aviation after the sector’s inclusion in the ETS
It seems likely that Germany will keep the new levy on aviation even after aviation joins the EU ETS in 2012. The tax will be levied based on carbon emissions and noise levels, although full details have yet to be thrashed out. This is in contrast to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s initial announcement on 7th June, when she said the tax is set to run only until 2012. The new tax will start in Jan 2011, and could raise €1 billion per year.
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Government takes hundreds of thousands of ‘unnecessary’ flights every year – WWF
A new WWF report shows in 2008/9 government officials took more than 450,000 flights, 90% to UK destinations or European cities that can be easily reached by train. WWF said government could cut 200,00 flights a year and save more than £30 million. Many of the flights could be replaced by videoconferencing. Though many government departments have made huge efforts to cut costs, they have not made similar efforts to reduce their flying.
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Excess baggage? Time to reduce government flying – WWF report
A new WWF-UK report "Excess Baggage: the case for reducing government flying" reveals the full extent of flights taken by government ministers and officials over the past 3 years. A shocking 90% of those flights were within the UK. The most common domestic routes were London-Edinburgh and London-Belfast, while the top non-UK short-hauls were to Brussels, Geneva, Luxembourg and Strasbourg. All reachable by lower-CO2 train and ferry, or replaceable by video-conferencing.
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IATA SLAMS GERMAN AIR TRAVEL TAX PLANS
Airline industry body IATA lashed out at German plans to impose an air travel tax while Europe's aviation industry is struggling to make a profit amid a weak economic environment. Angela Merkel announced the tax plan on Monday. Commerzbank said the burden for Lufthansa would be about EUR €200 million a year, assuming the carrier is able to pass on half of the tax to passengers.