Tuesday 27th May 2003

No Tax on Aviation Fuel

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[chris_crossley]

Government allways finds a moral argument for adding tax to stuff. It's called spin. That's why speed camera's exist.

Why not reduce the tax on cars to bring us in-line with planes?

[andytk]

There are two types of aviation fuel.

There is avgas (aviation gasoline) which is basically 100 octane leaded petrol. This is used by small lightplanes (cessnas and such like) with piston engines. This stuff works great in old cars and old motorbikes but would kill the cats in the exhaust in modern cars.
Oh, and its taxed just as much as normal petrol. Indeed it costs about a pound a litre!!!

The other type is jet fuel known as avtur (aviation turbine fuel).
This isn't dissimilar to diesel or kerosine and is used by jet planes and turboprop planes.
Recently a small swiss airplane company have developed a a twin engined plane for the british market that has two diesel engines that run on avtur. The idea is that private airplane owners can cash in on the cost savings by running on avtur. All perfectly legal and above board.

It would be impossible to tax avtur as airlines would simply fill the tanks in a tax free country and not fuel up here. Or worse the wouldn't use Britain as the start point for long haul. They would simply run small ferry sevices to somwhere else.

However if the govenment could figure out a way to fleece the money out of the airlines (and hence US again) they would. B*****ds.

Andy

[RobDickinson]

"It would be impossible to tax avtur as airlines would simply fill the tanks in a tax free country and not fuel up here."

Shame they couldnt do that realy, planes (esp big passenger ones) have very strict takoff/landing weights so they cant carry much more fuel than they need for that flight.

As for the long haul, isnt it already cheaper to long haul from holland/italy/france?

[v8thunder]

Why not tax them on the amount of pollution they put out over the airspace? If they're willing to tax cars on C02 emissions, why not do it for planes?

[andytk]

v8thunder said: Why not tax them on the amount of pollution they put out over the airspace? If they're willing to tax cars on C02 emissions, why not do it for planes?

Do you really want this to happen? Its bad enough that we're hounded for money as car drivers when our cars are less polluting and more efficient than ever, but we really DON'T need another stealth tax.

And who do you think is going to pay anyway. The Airlines? Hardly, they'll simply use something like this to bump up ticket prices so it'll be you and I that will end up getting fleeced.

And besides its debateable whether or not C02 is even a problem. The current American administration do not believe it is (hence won't sign up to the Kyoto agreement). That said its more likely they don't believe C02 is damaging as it suits their purpose to believe so.
However global warming is a whole other argument which I can't be arsed with right now.

Andy

[Superflid]

andytk said: There are two types of aviation fuel.

The other type is jet fuel known as avtur (aviation turbine fuel).
This isn't dissimilar to diesel or kerosine and is used by jet planes and turboprop planes.

306 1.9 diesel runs fairly well on it. So I've been told............