New campaign to make family travel cheaper - needs signatures

[LondonLouLou]

Has anyone seen this campaign from Travelzoo to petition the government to suspend Airport Passenger Duty for family travel over the summer? I'm signing it as I am fed up of being penalised for having school age children and being forced to pay the highest fares on flights. Here's the link to a blog explaining what they are trying to do: www.travelzoo.com/uk/from-the-deal-experts/?tz_cs=HPV0
They have 12,000 signatures and need 100,000 for it to be debated in Parliament. Worth a try......

.... and all the people in the british tourism industry are fed up that in France VAT for tourism businesses is only 5% and that airlines don't pay vat on fuel. I also object to paying green taxes on my energy bills when the true cost of flying which generates many tonnes of CO2 isn't taken into account. all this recycling we do and all the efforts to buy local to cut down fuel miles is blown out of the water by one flight. if you don't want to pay APD don't fly, reduce your carbon footprint and have a holiday in the UK instead.

I wish them luck but there are already other petitions in place which have been going for longer. Also the Daily Telegraph has been writing on the impact of APD for at least a year now.

To my mind it should be scrapped altogether (and not just suspended) as it is an unfair and iniquitous tax on passengers leaving UK airports. The UK has by far the highest level of APD in the world and there is evidence to suggest that it is economically damaging.

With effect from 1 January 2013 the Northern Ireland Assembly legislated to set devolved APD rates (Bands b to D) at £0 due to the damage caused to local businesses and jobs. Continental Airlines acknowledged that they would have abandoned flights from Belfast to the US if APD rates from Northern Ireland hadn?t been reduced.

This issue has also actually been debated in the House of Lords.