Why is it cheaper for me to fly to France from Shanghai, stay in a hotel in both Vietnam (connection) and France (twice) and then Eurostar to England and back to France, than fly directly to Heathrow?
Surely this works out as worse for ministers environmental goals?
Supply and demand.
Unusual for a ācheap optionā to include Eurostar tho.
Not supply and demand, bad taxation policy. The duty and taxes on super long haul flights are disgusting - even for the cattle class fares. If they were similar to other countries the difference wouldnāt have been so stark that it made more sense to fly to Charles de Gaulle
For example, from the Guardian: The charge for an economy class medium-haul flight will rise to ā¬15 and for long distance ā more than 5,500km ā to ā¬40
For a long-haul flight from London (thereās two, long-haul and ultra long-hual): reduced rate (cattle class) Ā£92 and standard Ā£202
Also worth mentioning Heathrow is the most expensive airport globally to land at iirc, meaning that weāre getting screwed by multiple parties with arbitrary taxes here
The whole APD was a meme to begin with, especially when it penalises people for flights they canāt avoid. They should have started taxing the domestic and short-haul flights in western europe that have train journeys as alternatives
You obviously wanted an answer you have since given, so not entirely sure itās been worth your while posting
ā¬40. Whatās that as a % of the total cost of your direct flight to Heathrow please?
I would gently suggest that you are disproportionately blaming a very minor component.
I donāt want to be rude, but you do know that it says ārantā and that rhetorical questions exist right
The āsurely this works out as worse for ministers environmental goalsā bit definitely implies some sort of governmental factor
Ā£92 is 109eur
Enough to Eurostar from Paris to UK and back, pair that with government sanctioned Heathrow taxes (Heathrow is authorised to charge way too much in landing fees) it adds up
Also, presumably the APD is once per leg. So Iām getting hit with the Ā£92 each way, meaning 80eur (fr) vs 218eur (uk), which I think is a significant difference
OK, please express Ā£92 as a % of the total fare for consideration.
Ā£184 was part of a 7200RMB fare (768GBP) with no baggage (return). Extrapolate that as 3600RMB (384GBP) each way.
Meanwhile the 80eur (total Ā£67) total flying to CDG on a Ā£459 (229gbp ish each way) return flight (with baggage)
so 92 as a percentage of 384 is (92/384) * 100 (about 24%) while (33/229)*100 is about 14.5%.
UK taxes are about the quarter of the cheapest ticket you can possibly get. itās grim. itās also penalised on flights that have no alternative, as i mentioned earlier - there is no decent train journey (or any train journey) to China, bar taking regional trains until I get to Finland, then somehow getting into Russia and going on the Moscow-Ulaanbataar-Beijing train, at which point Iād need to get on HSR for another 5h to get to Shanghai
The difference in fares is Ā£309.
The difference in duty is only Ā£117.
Find a new scapegoat.
thereās also a Heathrow tax of about Ā£20 more than the equivalent at CDG
also worth mentioning that I never said this was the entire thing - itās just part of a bigger picture. heathrow needs expansion and CAA fee reductions while the UK air duty needs to be flipped on its head - penalising short flights and making long flights without alternatives less expensive
they could then put the money into rail expansion and working out how to make short-medium haul to countries like Germany and beyond, possible via HSR
Yes, and itās also far busier and also full to capacity. I refer to the honourable contributor to my initial response.
Other airports are available.
the honourable contributor and you should practice reading comprehension. again, ranting is a rant
probably time to end it here
I think we can safely assume that the flying rant has landed. 