Safe Speed Forums

Right people, how much aviation get's burnt on this island. I have a plan to counter Goofy Gordons arguements about taxation. He argues we still have to pay tax and plays the health and education card when we say that alittle less tax on the unleaded would be nice. He says it's for the good of global warming. Bollocks. Shortly after he says please can you pump more oil Nice Arab People. Huh?

So If this Tax is for the environment, lets tax all energy consumption the same. That includes avaition. How much avaition gets burnt compared to road fuels?

I say take some duty of unleaded and diesle and lets see BA etc pay a bit on their fuel. P&O could pay a bit on their boat fuel. Trains could pay a bit too. And it physicly hurts saying this a little bit more duty on red fuel? What about heating oil? Natural gas? Electricity? Even renewable energy should be taxed or we will end up as one gaint wind farm.

If you fly you pay "airport tax". Fot a trip to the US thats about £65 per ticket.

If you tax aviation fuel you have a problem. The least of which is the fact that planes will be landed still loaded with fuel to cut down on re-fueling costs. Planes also remain in an international area which makes all purchases tax exempt.

How much tax do train operators pay on their diesel?

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Speed camera policy Kills

They pay the red diesel rate, which I beleive is 4.22p per litre.

It would certainly make sense to have more of a level playing field between tax on aviation fuel and road fuel, particularly as we have to recognise that oil is not an infinite resource.

However, as has been pointed out, the international nature of air travel means that no one country could realistically go it alone.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Taxing aviation fuel will always be a problem due to the international nature of the business.

What I find difficult to understand is the double standards applied to air travel compared to road transport.

Example:

"Air travel is essential to our economy. We must build more airports .....!

"We must discourage cars as they pollute the air, kill children ......"

All the same arguments apply to both, of course.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

We could at a pinch manage without air transport. We could not manage without road transport.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

If they somehow did manage to tax aviation fuel at a similar rate to road fuel, flying would be put out of reach of most people, and the airlines would have to cut back drastically.
This would probably lead to a huge increase in the number of passenger ships, which are less fuel-efficient than planes.

Cheers
Peter

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

Even SeaCat type vessels?

In any case, the distances travelled would inevitably end up being much shorter, so the amount of fuel consumed would tend to be less.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

So why does it cost me £75 return to London and only £240 (+tax) to get to New York, thats a posted shedule flight not a stand by.

I take about 30+ flignts a year to Europe, the USA and the Far East.

Considering the admin, security and safety I am amazed how airlines manage to do it for the money compared with "public" transport, if you can call it that nowadays.

I did try to use the train to get to Heathrow a couple of times but it is far easier and cheaper to pay the car parking at Manchester Airport instead.

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Speed camera policy Kills

Good question really. The main problem stems from the fact that some train operators get 75% of their revenue from subsidies, about 22% from fares with the rest being made of odds and sods. This doesn't give the operators as much incinentive to be profitable as the airlines - but don't forget they have contracts to provide a certain level of service whether it's used or not.

There is also the case of supply and demand as well, I doubt £240 to New York would be in the peak business flying time so perhaps not a 100% comparison. I got tickets to London from Leeds for £19 return on the train, as it was off-peak. Naturally, train prices will be higher if you want to arrive in London before 9am, simply because there is high demand, rather then the fuel costs.

So you pay far less to travel in an empty train in the middle of the day, even though the cost, per passenger, of the journey must be astronomical?

Makes sense to me

Cheers
Peter

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

Hmmm.. So does that mean that without the subsidies the full train fare for Capri's London return would be 300 quid?

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev

well if they have to run the train then it makes sense to get as many people as possible onto it. The only way to do this is to charge less during off peak times.

Yes, marginal pricing - something airlines do all the time.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

To justify the "green" argument. Brown would have to apply exactly the same tax level to all fossil fuel usage. but you know that he won't.

It would mean domestic and commercial Gas bills going up 200%, it would mean the same for Electricity bills and we will end up with lots of little old ladies being turned into ice blocks and public outrage.

Of course just as the duty on petrol supposedly will encouraging more economical vehicles and less usage, this would also encourage efficiently heated and well insulated buildings that cast a lot less to heat and less usage.

The Cons that introduced the tax in the first place later admitted that it was just an easy way to make money, and the justification was pretty much a pack of lies, and these have just been carried on and on as the tax levels have gone up and up.

The money is not even spent effectively either, it just gets wasted on more and more stupid ideas that each new politician thinks they have to introduce in order to "get their place in history".

I wouldn't mind too much if any of it was spent in building a carbon neutral infrastructure, such as bio fuels, but it isn't. And it is this simple fact that demonstrates so clearly that all of the green justification is a LIE, if reducing carbon emissions was the objective then why is none of the money invested in reducing carbon emissions? Several countries have for many years been mixing bio-ethanol that reduces fossil use by 7% (10% mix in petrol for a 3% loss of mpg). Where is this for the UK?

Bliar might have said "Schools and Hospitals" in the last protest, but the reality is that the money probably was spent on wars that he thinks will secure his place in history as the greatest Britain ever.

I can afford abit more on my domestic fuel bills, it cost £35 to heat and power my house for a month. It cost about £35 to fuel my car for 8 to 10 hours.grrr

The London trains are generally the exception - they make a profit on the whole without subsidies. The subsidies come into play on the rural lines. But your right, the true cost of a ticket on a evening service into the middle of nowhere would be very high indeed. I've asked this many times - what's the alternative though? Closure? Don't like that idea personally - people rely on these services. Replace them with buses? Would be cheaper, but journey times increased enormously on some routes.


I see your point, but you've got to remember that by far and away the biggest element of costs on the railway are fixed ones. The track and stations has to be maintained, signallers employed and of course the trains have to be paid for largely irrespective of how many trains run. So long as they can cover the variable costs of the train to run(fuel/staff) then it shouldn't matter how many people are on it. I think there should be more aggressive pricing on the trains during off-peak periods. As PeterE mentioned, the airlines do it, National Express do it and MegaBus do it. The train operating companies do it to some extent, but generally only on longer distance services and then it's only discounted rather then bargain priced. If 2/3 of the train is empty, I can't see why some seats can't go for £1 - just like RyanAir and EasyJet.

This story appears on the Beeb today....

Aviation 'huge threat to CO2 aim'

The opening paragraphs suggest that homes, industry and motoring will have to cut their emissions to near zero to match the growth in air travel.

This bit is interesting, and relates to this thread in general.

What the pillock really meant was "if we tax aviation fuel, they'll just fill their aeroplanes up somewhere else"... It would presumably only hit long-haul as they generally can't carry enough juice to, say, cross the Atlantic twice on a "tankfull". The growth area which seems to be short-haul "el cheapo" airlines will simply refuel elsewhere, and any British-based long-haul carriers will be placed at a serious economic disadvantage compared with their European and American competitors. (Sounds a bit like the road haulage industry!). Cue for a lot of "links" to Schipol and the like if you want to fly cheaply to the USA..

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev

Good point. Imagine the channel islands becoming a hub for flights to the US

The travel industry has always been very inventive when it comes to finding the cheapest routes. Remember the double ticket fiddle that was popular a few years ago. Getting two return tickets to a Euro hub at discount prices then throwing away one out-bound and one return to get the itinerery that you wanted.

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Speed camera policy Kills