APD for flights we didn't take won't be refunded by Ryanair

Hi all

Wife and I had flights from Edi to Prague last year. Sadly we couldn't make the holiday due to various reasons.

Last week I emailed Ryanair to request the APD refunded and received an email with the following:

'With regard to your request for a refund of the government tax paid on your Ryanair booking confirmation number xxx, applications for refunds of government tax are subject to an administration charge of €20/£17GBP (or local equivalent) per passenger. Please note that only the government tax is refundable. All other fees and charges, such as passenger service charge, aviation insurance and credit & debit card handling fees are non refundable, as they are paid irrespective of flights being used.

In this case, the administration fee exceeds the total amount of government taxes paid per passenger so unfortunately no refund is due in this instance. Please note that all other fees and charges, such as the passenger service charge, aviation insurance and reservation system administration fees are non-refundable as per our General Terms and Conditions of Carriage.'



The total flight cost was £105 for the 2 of us return so not a massive amount but I thought anyone flying had to pay the APD and if you didn't fly, it'd be refunded. Obviously I'm getting my wires crossed so could someone kindly help me in understanding why this is not the case in this instance.

Like I say, I wasn't expecting much but just unsure why RA aren't required to pay any tax for the flight.