Air Passenger Duty - Over Charging?

randan

I have searched for a thread related to my query but could not find one. Also I am not sure if this is the correct place for this question but I will give it a go and if it would be better then please feel free to move it.

I will try to keep this as short and concise as possible.

Like many other members of this forum, my local airport has very few international flights so I nearly always have to take a domestic flight to London in order to get to my destination and as such I usually end up having to pay Air Passenger Duty (APD) twice.

The reason I say usually is that according to HMRC rules on APD it would appear that if I book the complete journey from one airline (e.g. British Airways) then they would only charge one APD for the whole journey rather than one for the domestic leg and one for the international leg.

In order to get flight times and destinations that I want I usually end up having to book a domestic flight with one carrier and the international flight with another. These flights are connected and would qualify for only one APD charge based on the HMRC rules apart from the fact that they are not linked on the documentation (i.e. the tickets do not show that the two flights are linked).

Here is my example:-

Case 1.
01 JUN 09 Aberdeen to Heathrow with BMI
01 JUN 09 Heathrow to JFK New York with BA
15 JUN 09 JFK to Heathrow with BA
15 JUN 09 Heathrow to Aberdeen with BMI
Total APD £50 or £100 dependant on the class of travel

Case 2.
01 JUN 09 Aberdeen to Heathrow with BA
01 JUN 09 Heathrow to JFK New York with BA
15 JUN 09 JFK to Heathrow with BA
15 JUN 09 Heathrow to Aberdeen with BA

Total APD £40 or £80 dependant on class of travel

So my questions are :-
1. Is the above correct?

2. Is it fair that I (and many others) have to pay two lots of APD just because there is no way of linking these flights?

3. Is there any way round this?

http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageExcise_ShowContent&id=HMCE_CL_000505&propertyType=document#P353_21472

roger_c

I am absolutely no expert on this, and in fact have never considered it before, but does your argument not fall foul of the following:

"4.4 Tickets In addition to the time related criteria, the agreement for carriage must be evidenced by a ticket which must show the:

• airport from which the passenger intends to depart
• date and time of his intended departure, and
• airport at which he intends to arrive.

The connected flights must be detailed on the same ticket or conjunction tickets to qualify for the exemption. Tickets can only be regarded as conjunction tickets if:
(a) they are in one booklet, or
(b) where they are in separate booklets:

• each refers to the other and states that they are to be read in conjunction, or
• there is a summary of the flights constituting the passengers journey including the flights in question."

randan

Hi

My frustration is caused by this clause in that I am being penalised for not using a single carrier.

If I could book the whole journey with one carrier then I would as it would make it easier all round for everyone but my point is that it is not possible for me to do this and as such I have to pay more APD for something that is out of my control.

There must be thousands of people who are paying more than their fair share of APD because of this and if it is not procatical for the airlines to build in some way of link flights from different airlines then I think that there should be some mechanism for us to claim back the tax that we should not have had to pay.

I am saying that the 4.4 Tickets clause is unfair and there should be some way round this unless the definition of 'connected' means 'with a single airline'.

I will ask the question of HMRC And see if they can clarify.