Air Passenger Duty is hitting Caribbean families hardest
From Lester Hollowy
It was very disappointing that government ministers this week refused to scrap the hated Air Passenger Duty, a regressive tax which penalises hard-pressed Caribbean families visiting relatives.
The extra tax might swell the Treasury’s coffers but it adds yet more strain on the budgets of low income families who often save up for two years or more for the trip, and is on top of the already extortionate ticket prices.
Sky-high fares to the Caribbean are effectively subsidising cheaper flights to holiday destinations popular with primarily white passengers, including much further destinations like America and Australia, where ticket prices are cheaper relative to the distance.
On top of that British Airways and Virgin have almost doubled additional fees such as the extra baggage levy, placing an intolerable burden on Caribbean families who were invited to Britain to rebuild the war-torn public services but now face being cut off from their relatives by the escalating costs.
Facilitators for a Better Jamaica have been campaigning against the extra fees (visit their change.org petition here) which I support, however in reality Caribbean people are hit by a triple-whammy during a time of austerity which is impoverishing the community.
ADP, rising fares and add-on fees are leading to a fall in visitors to the Caribbean which is in turn damaging the island economies in the region of the world most dependant on tourism. The fact is a significant slice of this ‘tourism’ is actually family visits, including for weddings and funerals.
On the other side of the coin the UK has long been deterring visitors coming from the Caribbean to Britain through rising airport taxes and profiling by border officials.
It all adds up to a severing of the connection between low income Caribbean people in Britain and the islands.
Due to the bizarre way ADP was constructed by the last Labour government, using four ‘bands’ based on the location of the capital city, there is actually a lower levy for passengers travelling to California and Hawaii on the other side of the globe than for the Caribbean.
I have heard it argued that ADP is meant to be an environmental tax, but in that case why not raise fees for short-haul trips where other modes of transport are possible rather than long-haul flights?
Due to fees and fares travel agents now advise Caribbean travellers that it is cheaper to change at Miami and catch a connecting flight to the islands than fly direct, using more airline fuel per person, which makes a mockery of the environmental argument.
I would like to see the banding system scrapped and a new regime of duty based on the actual distance, as the crow flies, between departure and destination which is strongly weighted towards taxing short-haul flights to Europe.
At the same time the government should investigate the pricing structure of airline fares and introduce penalties to force airlines to charge customers equitably. It cannot be fair that it is cheaper to board a plane to Las Vegas than Kingston, Jamaica, or that proportionally the cost per mile to travel to Turkey is so much cheaper than the Caribbean.
The Caribbean community in Britain, many of whom are economically disadvantaged as a result of institutional racism, should not be subsidising holiday-makers to sun-spots when they scrimp and save up for a rare family gathering in the Caribbean.
I clearly remember David Cameron, the opposition leader, promising to review ADP while answering questions from a mostly black audience at the Peckham Academy before the 2010 general election. He got a round of applause for it. The clear impression given was that he would get rid of ADP, yet in government he has done nothing.
Since 2010 we have witnessed a ridiculous flip-flopping of one minister saying it would be reviewed one year and their successor saying it would not be changed the next. This has happened at least twice. At this rate there is still time for ministers to change their mind twice more before the 2015 election and go through a whole parliament without addressing the issue.
The latest position, given by junior Treasury minister Nicky Morgan on Tuesday was that ADP will be “kept under review” but that is a significant retreat from the promise by her predecessor Justine Greening in 2011 that government would specifically review it and report back.
Diane Abbott has done more than any MP to keep this issue on the agenda, including lobbying the last Labour government which introduced ADP, but I remain pessimistic about whether anything will change before the election.
The flight tax to the Caribbean increased by 25% in November 2009. In November 2010, the tax on flights from the UK to the Caribbean increased by a further 50% in all classes of travel. At present, passengers travelling to the Caribbean pay £75 per person in economy, or over £300 for a family of four. And it is often whole families that make the trip.
However, as I have said, ADP is part of a wider picture of extortionate fares, where passengers to the Caribbean proportionately pay more per mile, and extra baggage charges.
It is manifestly wrong that is costs less to fly to Hawaii than Jamaica. The system makes no sense from an environmental point of view, and in addition to wanting to see the ADP scrapped and replaced with a mileage levy weighted to short haul flights I would like to see all duties waved entirely where passengers can prove they are visiting a close relatives and any loss of income shifted to those in business class.
By Lester Holloway @brolezholloway
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