Call for tax squeeze on private jets and frequent flyers

Campaign group Possible are taking aim at frequent flyers and private jet use, calling on the government to increase tax on both flyers and fuel in the forthcoming budget.

The group are suggesting three changes to taxation to ensure that the polluter pays proportionately. 

Apply higher rates of tax on private jets.
Around 560 private jets landed or took off from UK airports each day last year, emitting half a million tonnes of CO2 – the highest level in Europe.

Private jets are between 20 and 30 times more polluting than ordinary flights, but only around a quarter of them carry passengers paying the highest rate of Air Passenger Duty (APD). On the remainder, passengers pay either the same APD as premium economy passengers or nothing at all.

Total APD receipts in 2023/24 were £3,845 million but Possible believe that a new ‘super’ rate of Air Passenger Duty to private jets could raise £1.4 billion each year – enough, they observe, to fund winter fuel payments.

Bring in a frequent flyer levy.
Possible are proposing the introduction of a progressive tax for air travel, that would have the smallest impact on those who fly the least.

Following the Spring budget, in which Jeremy Hunt increased APD on business and first-class tickets, Alex Chapman wrote in a blog for the New Economics Forum: ‘Left untouched, however, are a whole range of unnecessary and excessive economy class flights. This includes, for example, flights to destinations in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands easily reachable by train.’

These are the flights that would be disincentivised, as each subsequent flight over the course of a year would be taxed at a high rate than the preceding one.  

Introduce a kerosene tax.
Given the amount of fuel tax paid by car drivers, it might come as a surprise that jet fuel is completely untaxed. Someone driving from London to Edinburgh would pay five and half times more tax than someone choosing to fly.

A briefing by the Green Alliance in May 2024 suggested that tax on kerosene should begin at 9p per litre in 2025, incrementally growing to 97p per litre in 2035, by which time it would be raising around £8.5bn of revenue. 

Possible have created a simple webtool enabling people to raise the issue with their MP. The letter reads, 

As a concerned constituent, I would like you to advocate for crucial measures in the upcoming Autumn Budget that will help address both climate change and social inequality—two issues which are really important to me. Please will you raise my views with the new Chancellor, and ask her to introduce a tax on private jets and the most frequent flyers in this Budget?

I welcome the new government’s ambitious plans to lead on climate, including reaching a net-zero energy system by 2030 and your focus on on green jobs and supporting renewable energy.

Aviation is both a significant source of carbon emissions, and a source of stark inequalities. While most of us rarely fly, a small percentage of the population accounts for the majority of flights and emissions, with just 15% of people taking 70% of all the flights, while the taxes paid on these flights fail to reflect the emissions caused.

The kerosene used by this sector remains untaxed, in stark contrast to ordinary drivers who pay fuel taxes whenever they fill up at the pump. The lack of taxes on private jets is even more shocking, with three-quarters of private jet passengers paying the same rate of passenger tax as those in premium economy, or even paying no APD at all. This is really unfair, and harmful for both our climate and our economy,

Bringing in a higher tax rate on private jets and the most frequent flyers could help to fund public services. It seems really unfair that private jet users avoid paying tax, while the UK cannot afford winter fuel payments to keep pensioners warm this winter.