Labour’s Shadow Chancellor plans to slap new ‘green’ taxes on plane tickets

By Paul Homewood

h/t Patsy Lacey

Labour’s John McDonnell is plotting a tax hike on plane tickets and getting rid of duty free at airports, the Treasury warned last night.

The Shadow Chancellor wants to put up levies on flying and increase rates paid on alcohol in the departure lounge, according to comments made by his team.

The changes could double the cost of a plane ticket – making a summer holiday somewhere sunny abroad out of reach for many hard-working families.

Shadow Treasury Minister Clive Lewis has vowed to crackdown on the ability of Briton fly by plane abroad if Labour are elected.

He said: ‘Growth in demand for UK air travel must be limited.’

He argued that they must ‘control and push down demand for flights’.

He called and a useful ‘lever’ to do this.

The current rate of APD sees the average family already paying £81 per year in ‘holiday tax’.

A new frequent-flyer tax and ending the duty-free status of flights and airport shopping are other options being discussed.

A £238 flight would rocket to £505 if all the measures are introduced, pricing many families out of a holiday completely, according to The Sun.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6561361/Warning-Labour-holiday-tax-families.html

Needless to say, the Labour Party assures us that this is not party policy, but we have heard that one before!

To argue that Air Passenger Duty a ‘fiscally progressive tax’ shows just how out of touch Labour are with their own roots. They seem to have the quaint idea that only rich people can afford to fly. It is working class families who will be hit hardest by APD, as they have kids to pay for as well.

No doubt McDonnell sees this as a nice little earner, but it is Clive Lewis who appears to give the game away. UK air travel must be cut, according to him, and to do so it must be priced out ordinary people’s budgets.

Meanwhile, Beijing’s new Daxing International Airport is due to open this autumn.

With eight runways serving 100 million passengers annually, Daxing International will becoming the world’s largest airport.

Beijing new Daxing airport terminal building rendering

And China also aims to open 200 more airports by 2035:

The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) published a development report on Monday that aims to add 216 new airports by 2035 and develop a number of regional transport hubs.

According to the CAAC, China had 234 civil airports as of October this year and is expected to have around 450 by 2035, China Daily reports. Further, the demand for passenger transport in China will account for a quarter of the world’s total and exceed that of the US by 2035, making China the largest air passenger market in the world.

It also says that world-class airports will be built in the Yangtze River Delta region, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area and the Chongqing and Chengdu city cluster.

"Service has improved substantially, but existing airports are far from adequate and are unevenly distributed throughout the country," said Dong Faxin, director of the administration’s development and planning department.

China’s airports are expected to handle 720 million trips by 2020 – up from 552 million last year – according to the the administration.

https://gbtimes.com/china-aims-to-develop-over-200-new-airports-by-2035

Does Clive Lewis really think stopping working class families from flying to Majorca will make any difference to the world’s climate?