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On a recent trip to the UK, I read an article that said that passenger boardings in the most of the UK's regional airports (those other than London and Manchester and Edinburgh) were down over 50% due to the Air Passenger Duty (APD) tax and one had even closed.
This tax was originally introduced by Gordon Brown when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer with the stated intent of discouraging people from flying in order to ''save the planet''. It has since been increased by subsequent governments, and it looks like it is doing what Brown intended it to do at least as to the discouraging flying part.
The previous center-left government in the Netherlands tried the same thing for the same purpose, but found all it was doing was sending passengers across the border to Germany or Belgium, and meanwhile putting a severe financial hurting on the Amsterdam airport. They repealed the tax.
The article said that the last remaining TATL (trans-Atlantic) flight from Belfast, Northern Ireland would likely be cancelled because passengers were taking the train to Dublin and flying from there to avoid the tax (which is ~$100 TATL from the UK, but only $3 from the Irish Republic - hooray for Ireland!).
Regional airports are convenient. I used the Liverpool airport myself on my last trip to the UK. The UK government seems intent on destroying them, however.
As to TATL flights, the best bet if you are flying into the UK, is to fly open-jaw, US to UK outbound, then return from some other country like Ireland back to the US, getting a seperate ticket, not tied to your TATL ticket, on an LCC between the UK and your TATL departure point. The APD on the short haul trip is much less than on the long haul.
This tax was originally introduced by Gordon Brown when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer with the stated intent of discouraging people from flying in order to ''save the planet''. It has since been increased by subsequent governments, and it looks like it is doing what Brown intended it to do at least as to the discouraging flying part.
The previous center-left government in the Netherlands tried the same thing for the same purpose, but found all it was doing was sending passengers across the border to Germany or Belgium, and meanwhile putting a severe financial hurting on the Amsterdam airport. They repealed the tax.
The article said that the last remaining TATL (trans-Atlantic) flight from Belfast, Northern Ireland would likely be cancelled because passengers were taking the train to Dublin and flying from there to avoid the tax (which is ~$100 TATL from the UK, but only $3 from the Irish Republic - hooray for Ireland!).
Regional airports are convenient. I used the Liverpool airport myself on my last trip to the UK. The UK government seems intent on destroying them, however.
As to TATL flights, the best bet if you are flying into the UK, is to fly open-jaw, US to UK outbound, then return from some other country like Ireland back to the US, getting a seperate ticket, not tied to your TATL ticket, on an LCC between the UK and your TATL departure point. The APD on the short haul trip is much less than on the long haul.
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