Subject: IMPORTANT - Increase of Air Passenger Duty
From: contact@opodo.co.uk
Date: 31 Jan 2007 15:32:05 -0700Dear Opodo Customer,
Thank you for your travel booking with Opodo.
We would like to take this opportunity to update you on the changes that have been made to the APD (Air Passenger Duty).
Following Her Majesty’s Treasury’s recent decision to double UK APD tax (GB tax) for passengers departing UK airports from 1st February 2007.
In reference to your flight booking, we can advise you that you are required to pay the additional surcharges. Please see below how this payment needs to be made:
American Airlines - The additional surcharge will be collected at the American Airlines Ticket Desk at the UK departure airport.
International destinations:
First/Business Class: GBP80 per ticket
Economy Class GBP40 per ticketMay we take this opportunity to wish you a pleasant trip. If you require any further assistance, please contact our Customer Service Team who will be more than happy to help.
Kind regards
Opodo Customer Service
What’s that you say? Booked last year? Can’t possibly be retroactive? Kinda-sorta-illegal? Sorry, forty quid, please. Just be glad you’re not sitting at the front and therefore quite obviously producing twice as many carbon emissions as you plebs at the rear.
Anyway, stop being so selfish and pony up the cash; Our chancellor’s only doing it for the environment / the sake of our children’s children / the plight of Africa / he needs the cash to buy some new bombs*.
*Delete according to what you think of the dour Scottish git and thank you for visiting Britain, we hope to see you again soon.
Song playing as this was published: The Gentle Waves - “Falling From Grace”
To be fair, not only the airline and opodo’s terms and conditions say I can’t pay after booking, but it’s also not a legal tax until MPs pass it. However, claiming I don’t have to pay it may end up with not getting on the plane.
Legal schmegal. Think of the baby seals.
Does this charge apply to outgoing flights only, or is it both ways?
Whatever, the UK is already on the MountPenguin household’s “no fly” list as far as intercontinental flights that could be routed via London go (we fly fairly regularly between Europe and Asia). Too much fog, too many “terrorist incidents” (whatever happened to the would-be liquid bombers from last summer?), Heathrow Airport is a nightmare at the best of times, and BA is definitely the worst long haul carrier I’ve been on.
MountPenguin: It’s just for departures, although I think it applies to flights that make Zwischenlandungen in the UK, too.
I have to say, I’m slowly starting to hate air travel. It’s not the fear of flying (although that doesn’t help), it’s the check-in, security, only 20kg, waiting, herding, delays, a bit more herding, “I think you’ve had quite enough to drink already, sir” and then sitting in the sodding plane for an hour after it’s landed because they can’t find anyone to drive the bus from the aircraft to the terminal building. I don’t care if I can fly to the Frankfurt airport that’s actually in Rheinland-Pfalz for a penny (asterisk): From now on, everything that’s less than (say) 1,000km isn’t worth the hassle of flying.
And you only think BA are bad because you’ve never flown with NorthWest. God they were rubbish. I’m not even going to start with Sabena, except to say that they deserved to go bankrupt and that I didn’t realise that commercial airliners could descend that rapidly when making an ‘unscheduled’ landing that was in no way connected to the cabin being full of smoke.
Between the costs (and domestic air travel to Islamabad) of visas and the amount of time spent (read “wasted”) on providing supporting documentation to airlines in Pakistan, I think I may well place an official moratorium on actually every flying internationally again.
Not that the domestics are that much better, but at least there one can browbeat airport/airline staff into complete submission.
More taxes and more taxes……perhaps the goverment is just trying to tax people fleeing the country. It wont be long before Merkel the Ferkel gets wind of this and does something simular!
Sin: Our domestics are awful - my breakfast this morning was cold when served and I find myself increasingly having to instruct her in German. Don’t they teach English in Romanian schools? One really can’t get the staff nowadays…..
Haddock: and this really isn’t for the eyes of any future UK employers. I don’t care so long as I can afford to pay the leaving tax and get the hell out of here
Ah, never been west of Kyle of Lochalsh, but have heard dire stories about the US airlines. I once sat next to an American lady on a BA flight to Germany (this was before the advent of RyanJet and Co.) and she was cooing and cawing at the little tray of toy food they dished out for lunch, and how nice the airplane was.
MountPenguin: Arriving at US Customs is great fun, too. I can only recommend that if you must fly across the Atlantic, to choose El Al. Now, the check-in might take 6 hours in a special, sealed off area, but if the plane is taken over by hi-jackers, they’re going to shoot the Israelis first. Compare and contrast with say a Lufthansa plane where there are far fewer Jews, and it’s the Brits and Americans at the top of the list.
Plus, there’s the entirely valid excuse for turning up a whole day late that “the plane didn’t manage to take off before sundown and it was Shabbat and what can you do?”