REPORT ︎

Air Departure Tax: Who Benefits?

Co-authored with Leo Murray

Our analysis of Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Passenger Survey data from Scottish airports reveals that this £160m+ annual tax giveaway will predominantly go to line the pockets of wealthy frequent flyers and corporations, while the majority of Scots will lose out.

Commissioned by Scottish Green Party MSPs and co-authored with Leo Murray for A Free Ride

40% of the tax giveaway for UK leisure passengers would go to the richest 10% of Scottish households. These figures indicate that 8.3% of the total tax break pie - £13.5m in 2018/19 - will go to line the pockets of leisure passengers in the richest 10% of Scottish households, while only 2.4% goes to the poorest 10%.

Because most flights are taken by the minority of passengers who are frequent flyers, the financial benefits of the planned cut in APD will in practice be heavily concentrated with a small number of individuals.

Given that lower income households are also most likely to be negatively impacted by a reduction in public finances, the social justice implications of the planned cut to APD appear dire, even before factoring in the impact on Scotland’s national climate change goals. Climate change will disproportionately affect the world’s poorest people, and exacerbating the problem by rewarding wealthy Scots for environmentally damaging leisure behaviour is impossible to reconcile with Scotland’s commitment to climate justice