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Empty planes flying just to keep their runway slot

In recent days, the shadow chancellor has been looking to replace air passenger duty (APD) with a per-flight tax - resulting in people wanting to fly end up paying for more. Linked in with this are the ongoing issues of aviation emmissions where planes pump hundreds of tons of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere every day. A recent report shows Its come to light in recent days, that British Mediterranean Airways (BMed) have been flying an empty plane from Heathrow to Cardiff every day to keep their runway slot. In late 2006, BMed's daily flight to Uzbekistan was scrapped and rather than loose their sought-after Heathrow slot, they fly an empty plane. Unfortunately the airport owners (BAA) cannot do anything about this as the runway slots are highly sought after and bought and sold by Airport Co-ordination Ltd (ACL). If slots aren't used, then they get withdrawn. Increasing airport passenger duty (or replacing it with a defined tax) to try and make people think twice about flying (apart from the rich) seems bonkers if the whole system is being abused. I wouldn't be surprised if climate change organisations have a field day over this - and who could blame them.

Browse tags: #CWL #LHR #BMed

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