More air ticket taxes

[razman10 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close razman10]

Though increased airfare hurts us all; what can we do about it? If we pay the extra tariff they win, if we decide not to fly, they still win. What is our recourse?

Razman 10

[short Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close short]

Cruise.

Though increased airfare hurts us all; what can we do about it? If we pay the extra tariff they win, if we decide not to fly, they still win. What is our recourse?

Razman 10

Take a ship.

Short

[Pstreet1 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Pstreet1]

We scheduled our up-coming trip through London, so we're going to get stuck going to Amsterdam--is that long haul since it leaves the country?

After being on the continent for three weeks, we fly to Shannon from Paris, no problems there, but we return to London from Shannon--is that long haul? Then we leave for the U.S. from London. American has already notified us that we'll have to pay the tax at the counter before we can leave London. What about when we arrive in London? They said nothing about that.

At this point, there isn't much we can do about it, but I would like to know how much extra this is going to cost us.

[Carolinian Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Carolinian]

Creative routing can minimize how much you pay in taxes.

For example, one trip I plan in the future is to Northern Ireland. I can fly to Amsterdam, Paris, or Rome long haul and then connect to Belfast on EasyJet, resulting in only a shorthaul tax to Gordo's bunch. Even better I can hopefully arrange an open jaws ticket into Rome and out of Amsterdam, with stopovers in each, connecting to Belfast on Easy Jet from Rome, then Belfast to Amsterdam on Easy Jet and long haul home from Amsterdam. That way, in addition to minimizing Gordo's tax, I get to kick around a bit in Rome and Amsterdam, as well as seeing Northern Ireland. Before Gordo's tax, I would have just flown into London, but creative routing actually makes it a more interesting trip.

Though increased airfare hurts us all; what can we do about it? If we pay the extra tariff they win, if we decide not to fly, they still win. What is our recourse?

Razman 10

[Pstreet1 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Pstreet1]

I agree, but we've, unfortunately, already purchased the U.S. to London tickets. Had we known.....oh well. I'm just wondering what constitutes a long haul and what constitutes a short haul. I'd really like to get off with "short haul" to Amsterdam and "short haul" from Shannon, but I have no idea how they are defining short haul: mileage? out of the United Kingdom? out of England?

[Carolinian Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Carolinian]

From what I read, short haul is to any EU destination, and long haul is to anywhere else. That leads to some rather short ''long hauls'' such as to Morrocco.

[Pstreet1 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Pstreet1]

Thanks, I hope that's right--and I'm still more than annoyed about the extra added to our tickets to/from London. It's one thing to know when you buy the ticket what the charge will be; it's quite another to have it added on long after the ticket has been purchased it seems to me.

[Carolinian Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Carolinian]

Discovery Channel documentary explodes the excuse for this tax

The recent Discovery Channel documentary ''Best Evidence: Chemical Contrails'' exploded the myth of environmental damage from the carbon and water vapor in the contrails on jet aircraft. It featured the research of Dr. Pat Minnis, senior research scientist at NASA Langley Research Center and their top expert on clouds and contrails, who says that his study has shown that the contrails are harmless. In fact they may even marginally help cool the planet by slightly increasing the cloud cover. Dr. Minis calculated from his research that jet contrails increased the cirrus cloud cover over the US by about 1%.

Maybe some of the UK leaders who came up with this tax should watch that documentary.