“Britain’s perfect air travel storm” – By Adrian Loverage in Barbados

“Britain’s perfect air travel storm” – By Adrian Loverage in Barbados

The British government is being urged to use the upcoming autumn financial statement to remove its air passenger duty (APD) altogether, in a bid to ensure the United Kingdom (UK) remains attractive in a post-Brexit world.

Airlines UK and the Board of Airline Representatives have teamed up to appeal to Chancellor Philip Hammond. Airlines UK is the trade body for UK registered airlines. It has 11 members, including British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Thomas Cook and Thomson, all of which serve Barbados.   

According to their website, the objective is to “work with governments, regulators and legislators to promote the interests of UK airlines and with organisations across the sector to encourage long-term sustainable growth in aviation”.

After a prolonged period of relatively low fuel prices, the continued crises in the Middle East is now forcing crude oil costs up. Add to that the UK currency fluctuation caused by the uncertainty of a Europe without the UK and the resulting near 20 per cent fall in value when compared with the US dollar.

Most airlines buy forward to combat the increase in the cost of fuel, but the double whammy of a depleted value of sterling and the hike in Jet A1 fuel prices, which have to be paid for in US dollars, have combined to create an almost perfect storm in the UK airline industry.

Not surprisingly, the airlines are looking from every possible viewpoint at what could influence keeping fares down, as they know, higher seat costs result in fewer people travelling.  The other unknown is inflation.

In 2015, the UK was rated as the world’s ninth largest exporter. Good news, you would think, with a lower value of sterling making British goods and services more attractive and less expensive.

But the UK is now the sixth largest importer, resulting in virtually all those products becoming at least 20 per cent more expensive.

In March, 2017, the British government will change the way it measures inflation to include home owning costs. This will inevitably increase the rate of inflation, resulting in the Brits having reduced disposable income or in our interests, less to spend on foreign holidays.

From our perspective, there are a few positives on the horizon. Virgin has recently changed its frequent flyer or loyalty programme making it easier and quicker to earn sufficient miles to fly for free.

In reality, of course, when you pay the taxes and other add-ons to miles tickets, there is still a substantial cost, but it is at a lower price option than a full fare ticket or another way to upgrade your seat preference.

Sadly, our marketing gurus rarely consider frequent flyers in the overall promotional picture, despite some experts calculating that one in ten of our total visitors, use miles to reach us.

What cannot be disputed is that the majority of business people amass their miles to use on leisure travel and, once again, I call for a dramatically re-designed airport landing form which includes the question: “did you use your frequent flyer miles to reach us”?

Email: re-discover@caribsurf.com