The poorest don’t fly
From Richard Laming Sir: I have no objection to cheap flights, but I do have an objection to irrational tax policies (‘The plane truth’, 4 February). The fuel used by planes on international passenger flights goes untaxed thanks to a prohibition in the 1944 Chicago Convention, whereas the fuel you put in your car is taxed at 47.1 pence per litre. This means that the most environmentally damaging form of transport pays the lowest rate of tax, which is surely irrational.
But, as well as being irrational, it also falls unfairly on the poor. Those who can afford to travel by air tend to be richer than average — the very poorest people cannot afford to fly at all — so this is a loophole that benefits the rich.
Richard Laming
London SE1
From P.L. Hill Sir: I too have vomited on the ghastly crossing between Holyhead and Rosslare, but if Brendan O’Neill wants to visit Galway why must he use Luton airport? Snobbery is not the reason that there has been a massive local protest at the projected expansion eventually planned for up to 30,000 passengers. Extension of the runways will mean the ruin of one of the last unspoilt parts of rural England, including a historic garden and charming narrow roads through which one can still meander by car between fields and hedges, past villages almost unchanged since Saxon times. The increase in road traffic alone will mean widening these to everyone’s detriment.
Flights are available to Dublin from Heathrow and Gatwick, where the unfortunate residents have become so acclimatised to aircraft noise that a few extra flights laid on in the small hours would make no difference. The real secret is that at these major airports the tax on flights is a government perquisite, whereas at Luton a royalty is paid on each flight to the local authority. Mr O’Neill is in fact pandering to the ‘chattering classes’ by not taking his custom elsewhere.
P.L. Hill
Radlett, Hertfordshire
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