Air Fare Rise

Air fares are to rise. Yet again. The government plans to increase aviation duties by 10%, but airlines will pass on the oil prices and higher landing charges to passengers. Official inflation is supposedly around 2.5% (variable and rising), but is in reality 'officially' more than 6 times that amount. Another example of 'confused' government 'thinking'. A tax on every flight will mark a change away from the air passenger tax. As dwindling passenger numbers become the reality, the tax raised from each passenger will decrease, but the same number of aircraft are still expected to fly. An extra £500m will be raised to make a total yield of £2.5bn from next year. The justifiction is that airlines should fly with a fuller load. More fuel efficient. However, aircraft will still fly (either full or empty) as passengers cannot be simply conjured-up out of fumes. The travelling air-passenger will pay more to subsidise the loss of numbers caused by rising prices. Rather like the rail system in UQ (aka UK) Ltd .

It's a circus going around and around. The very dated and dreadfully worn mechanism to make money is pushed out again to make some more. One day (very soon) the bubble won't just burst, but explode. In fact, it started to erupt a while ago and went unnoticed, but has since suffered a terminal rupture.

Aviation fuel tax (duty) is allegedly zero according to the Convention on International Civil Aviation, but it would appear that the UQ (aka UK) Ltd is excluded.