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Aviation History
1961
1961 - 0330.PDF
338 FLIGHT, 16 Marc/i 1961 Landing Fees—Plus . . . The fuel supplier then pays a levy direct to the airport administra-tion, passes this on to the customer in the bulk price and it becomes impossible to determine by how much the basic price of the fuel hasbeen increased. One suspects that this happens at New York. In any case it has proved impossible to obtain figures for fuelprices inside the United States or in Hawaii and so it is extremely difficult to calculate the amount of tax to be paid where applicable.We have been forced to assume prices for these locations based upon the tax-free prices at London (100 octane—2s 2fd per gal,kerosene—Is 6£d per gal). Fuel taxes usually accrue to the country (or state or city) and canalter the picture considerably. Whereas Iceland has a very modest fee of £8 13s 3d for landing a Boeing 707-320, the final bill ishoisted to £331 16s 7d if a full fuel-load is taken on. Similarly the American landing fees look relatively small until one takesaccount of fuel charges, and then the picture is vastly different. The diagram at Fig 1 illustrates clearly how misleading it can beto think solely in relation to landing fees for airport charges. In this ^presentation the solid columns include only the chargespayable by the operator in respect of landing fees, lighting, naviga- tional aids, etc., for a Boeing 707-320 with fuel-throughput chargesand non-refundable fuel taxes superimposed. It is immediately apparent that although UK has landing fees which are the thirdhighest among the countries considered, she slips down the league table when the fuel levies are aggregated with landing fees.Head taxes, entry or transit charges These are administrative devices calculated to make the traveller realize how fortunate he isto be allowed to set foot in the country, ranging from 3s per head in Burma to £4 9s 4d in the Philippines and £5 in Jeddah. Fig 2 attempts to illustrate the approximate yield which countriestry to extract from civil aviation. For each country the timetables were searched to find the longest non-stop flight normally madefrom that country and the type of aircraft used. Then, using a 60 per cent load factor and assuming 30 first-class and 70 tourist-class passengers for a Boeing, the operator's gross revenue was calculated. The solid columns represent the gross charges payableby the operator, i.e., those included in Fig 1, as a percentage of his gross revenue. The open columns superimposed represent thegross amount received by the country, namely the fees paid by the operator together with all the stamp duties, ticket taxes and passen-ger service charges and so on paid by the passenger. The basis of the computations is a flight from the most distant (non-stop)destination to the country considered and then a return flight back to the other end—though only the charges at this end have beenconsidered. This is to take account of countries like Israel, which charge for passengers both inbound and outbound, and Canada,which charges the full transatlantic fee for both take-off and land- ing on such a flight. The United Kingdom Problem The basic problem facing the financial experts in the Ministry ofAviation is just how to find all, or part, of the £3.900.000 which was lost last year on the 11 aerodromes which, it is intended,shall ultimately be self-supporting. Due to the extreme difficulty of allocating costs it is possible that even this figure does notrepresent the full total which could be attributed to national and international aviation at these airports Flight, January 27, p. 105). However, using the published figure for the purposes of discus- sion, how is the money to be found ? One way to find more revenuesis to increase landing fees and this, to a tune of around 33 per cent, will happen on April 1. This decision has provoked shrill and angryprotests from the airlines and ill informed and inaccurate comment in other places. Oddly enough, increases elsewhere appear to havepassed without protest. Cyprus, France, Greece, Hong Kong, Israel and Switzerland have all raised their fees within the pasttwo years; and, whilst as from November last a Boeing 707-320 ex-Melbourne and clearing Darwin for Singapore now pays£A260, an increase of nearly 80 per cent, Venezuela has topped the lot with an increase of 100 per cent. The official 1 ATA line of reasoning on landing fees is astounding.In their condemnation of the new UK figures, issued a few weeks ago, they say: "Because of the government's inherent responsibilityfor the public safety, technical services must remain under direct government control and supervision and it is considered onlyproper that the costs of such services at airports should be assumed by governments." That may seem proper to IATA, but it mustseem most improper to the taxpayer. Let us, for the sake of argument, concede that the airlines havenow reached the point at which they will prefer to overfly or curtail services to the UK in preference to paying more, and see whetherany other sources of revenue are available. Airport concessions and car parks are already under active consideration, and much can bedone in these respects. Is there any logical reason why air travel should not also pay tax? At any rate it would make far bettersense than the present system under which the taxpayer stands the loss on airports and so, in effect, makes a present of a per capitasubsidy to every air traveller entering or leaving this country. Leave the passenger service charge out of it because this does not apply-to incoming passengers or transits, and it in any case only diminishes the subsidy very slightly—it does not expunge it. A tax of 1 per cent on all tickets sold in this country would adda negligible amount to the fare paid by the passenger; a tourist ticket to Rome next month would cost £38 10s 9d instead of£38 4s (night rate). The tax should not be restricted to nationals: let the foreigner join in as well and then we can have some of theNational Health expenses back. A 2 per cent ticket tax would make little more impression and would enable landing fees to becut by a handsome margin. Such a tax would bring in about £242 from a Boeing 707 load arriving at London from New York. Byusing this expedient the landing fee could be cut by £100, the passenger service charge abolished and the UK airport deficitwiped out in quite a short time. There is little danger that foreigners will complain. This tax is used in France, Iceland, Israel, Italy,Japan, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Syria among others, whilst the Americans have paid a 10 per cent transportation tax for years. * * * I am indebted to the Shell International Petroleum Company fortheir assistance in providing the relevant throughput charges and fuel taxes. The Aeronautical Information Service of the Ministryof Aviation were equally helpful in providing the latest information available on landing fees and allied charges. 1 am emphatically notindebted to the inventors of our currency system, which made a mountain of extra work in calculating the figures that went into thecharts (and into the tables to be published in a future issue). Decimalization of Britain's currency is long overdue. Apart fromthe Yemen, which has 40 bakhtas to the riyal, the £ is the only non-decimal currency left in the world.
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