Brits 'to pay extra £73m on flights to cover costs of airlines going bust'

Airline Flybmi ceased trading in February
Steve Parsons/PA
Lucy Tobin9 May 2019

British holidaymakers face paying an extra £73 million for flights each year after a Government review today recommended a levy on passengers to cover the costs of airlines going bust.

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling called for action after the collapse of Monarch Airlines in October 2017, when the taxpayer had to pick up the £60 million bill for getting 85,000 passengers flown home.

The huge cost of what was the UK’s largest peacetime repatriation operation led to the Airline Insolvency Review, which today called for a new “Flight Protection Scheme.”

The suggested surcharge would add nearly 50p to the cost of a ticket out of the UK with the money going into a pot to pay for passengers on failed airlines to be brought home.

With 146 million passengers departing from UK airports in 2018, according to the Civil Aviation Authority, the total extra cost for outbound flights would be around £73 million.

The plans come after two of the largest airline failures in UK history - the collapse of Monarch, plus Flybmi in February - caused chaos for thousands of passengers.

But airlines swiftly condemned the move, suggesting the Government should dip into the £3 billion it already collects throught Air Passenger Duty (APD) and warning that higher ticket costs could force more vulnerable airlines to collapse.

Willie Walsh, the boss of IAG - owner of British Airways, Aer Lingus and Iberia - said: “Airline passengers should not be charged a levy to bail out other carriers when they go bust”.

Tim Alderslade, chief executive of Airlines UK which represents major carriers including easyJet, Flybe, Jet2, Norwegian, Ryanair, Thomas Cook, Tui and Virgin Atlantic, warned: “Fifty pence may not sound much but airlines operate on wafer thin margins and passengers already pay over £3 billion each year to the Treasury in APD. This is not the time to make it more expensive to travel.”

“The chances of booking with an airline that goes bust remain extremely small. When it’s happened, airlines have demonstrated their commitment to bringing passengers home through voluntary rescue fares which worked extremely well and without any taxpayer liability.”

Mr Grayling, however, said he would “work to swiftly introduce the reforms needed to secure the right balance between strong consumer protection and the interests of taxpayers”.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in