Flybe responds to aviation taxation

Responding to the government’s plan to replace Air Passenger Duty with a tax per aircraft, Mike Rutter, the Chief Commercial Officer of Flybe, Europe’s largest regional airline made the following statement.

“Aviation is crucial to the UK economy, and in particular the UK regions. As the Chancellor constructs his new tax it is crucial he does not penalise isolated areas, dependent on transport, with a one-size-fits-all tax. He must instead adopt a more tailored approach with the carbon foot print of each aircraft at the front of his mind.

“Communities like the north of Scotland, the south west, Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands rely on smaller aircraft to ensure sufficient frequency of services. Any tax that doesn’t look at the carbon foot print of aircraft will simply open the door for carriers to create artificial ‘we’ll pay your tax’ promotions, designed to unnecessarily fill larger aircraft. This will simply serve to INCREASE the negative environmental impact to the climate.

“Flybe has long been aware of the importance of investment in appropriate aircraft, recently investing $2billion in state of the art planes. The carbon footprint of these aircraft is significantly better than other bigger, albeit also new, aircraft that many other airlines employ.

“Take for example Flybe’s state of the art 78-seater Bombardier Q400 that emits 817kg of CO2 at take off and landing and compare that to the Airbus A319 (156 seats) and the Boeing 737-300 (149 seats) that emit a whopping 2167kg and 2654kg respectively.

Rutter continued, “The crux of the issue here is that all aircraft older than 15 years of age should be banned from the UK. By investing significant amounts in new aircraft, Flybe has seen a 50.44% reduction in our carbon footprint and the government should focus its attention on airlines flying aircraft that should have been phased out years ago.”