Regional heads of government including Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit have again been pressing top UK officials to address their concerns about Britain’s controversial Air Passenger Duty (APD).
They raised the matter when the two sides met in Grenada at the weekend for the three-day seventh United Kingdom-Caribbean Ministerial Forum.
PM Skerrit said on his return here that the APD was “very seriously” discussed with the British government.
However he admitted that no commitment has been given that it will be removed.
Caribbean governments have been campaigning against what they have labeled a discriminatory travel tax which has made flights to the Caribbean from the UK more expensive.
The APD has increased the cost of an airline ticket significantly higher than to some other destinations including the United States.
Britain late last year ignored the case being made by major airlines in the UK, travel agencies and the Caribbean lobby for the tax to be revamped.
The government in London announced at the time that a proposed 10 percent hike would go ahead as planned in April.
The Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO) has complained that the APD will hurt regional tourism, and CTO officials were last November/December wringing their hands in despair when the latest UK decision was announced.
The CTO accused the British government of ignoring statistics and other information put forward by lobbyists that showed that the tax was having a real negative impact on Caribbean tourism destinations.
The APD represents a serious revenue earner for the UK.
In acknowledging this Prime Minister Skerrit indicated that he was aware that the travel tax was bringing in about 2.2. billion pounds annually to the British government.
He said Caribbean governments were concerned about the measure because “the application of the APD in itself, is also discriminatory, because it places the United States in a better position than the Caribbean.”
The Dominican leader said that point was reiterated during the Grenada meeting, with the concern again put to UK Foreign Secretary William Hague.
“It is a matter that the foreign secretary indicated that he would take back to his cabinet particularly to the treasury secretary, to see whether there can be some kind of review,” an optimistic Skerrit stated.
“It’s a very serious matter which is affecting the number of tourists who leave United Kingdom into the Caribbean,” he added, noting that Airlines British Airways and Virgin Atlantic echoed the concerns of regional governments at the Grenada meeting.
A united caricom should pursue this with all determination. DA should try its best thru the commonwealth.
OH, so you complaining now…I see….So let me ask you a question. Do you believe that the 17% VAT THAT YOU IMPOSED UPON THE PEOPLE OF DOMINICA IS FAIR?…Wouldn’t you agree it is much too high?.
At least the APD is 10%,but you are leading charge; complaining, yet, you do acknowledge that it brings in 2.2 Billion Pounds annually to the British Government…Well at the very least, there is transparency…
How about the VAT, how much does it bring in to your Govt. annually?….What about the sales of Passports, or the Economic Citizenship Program. Does the Dominican Citizen knows how much those bring in to your Govt. annually?.
I’ll tell you what, you lower the VAT to 10%, and we will look into lowering the APD or eliminating it completely…….Hypocrite!
HELLO FOOL / CAUSE YOU PROVED THAT YOU ARE ONE BY THE CONTENTS OF YOUR BLOG. THE VAT ALSO EXIST IN THE UK AT 18%. THE VAT IS LESS ON VARIOUUS SERVICES AND NON EXISTENT ON SOME GOODS IN DOMINICA. THE APP IS APPLIED TO AIRLINE TICKETS WHICH NAGATIVELY AFFETCTS TRAVEL FROM AND INTO THE UK. A TICKET COSTING 2560 LAST YEAR IS NOW UP BY 10% AS A GOVERNMENT DEPENDENT ON TOURISM WOULD YOUU NOT TRY TO GET THAT LOWERED OR removed totally. YOUR COMMENBT IS SO BLUE IT LOOKS LIKE AN OCEAN OF DLP HATRED. THIS IS A CARIBBEAN ISSUE FOOL. WISE UP.
its been 3 years since we broght the children back to see family, which is sad as we have no family here in the uk,so our dominican family is important, but for us a family flight from london to any of the islands is about 2500 pounds, that is not including the flights or ferry to DA, we could go via miami, which is madly a few hunderd pound cheaper, but i do not want the childrn who are under 5 to have to travel for 30 hours, by keep swapping and changing flights…..i miss home very much as my husband, but to come home now is far to expensive
these goverments have to remeber they are keeping families apart, which is sad.
Have u tried via Martinique/Guadloupe
yes we have but belive it or not traverling to paris with the children and luggage on euro star is a night mare, and to fly is just as much, again far to much traverling for the babies, have thought about a crise or even doing a really cheap pacage and then just flying on to DA but Liat is expensive too, i remeber when it was so cheap with caribbean star around, i miss them. thanks for the idea though xxxx
when will we get the uk airlines bringing pple to and from dominica. that a serious problem no air transportation from uk nor us, you all need to work on that
Sorry to whomever was offended, my disclaimer
Well isn’t that exponential slavery?
It seems to me like we are still SLAVES, continued to be dealt like cargo, “DUTY MUST BE PAID FOR ALL LIVE ANIMALS”. Yeah it is still stuck in their brains, they dealt us in the market places, DON’T FORGOT OR FORGET
Now is the time for the regional governments to remove the taxes on air travel trhoughout the caribbean, these exhorbitant taxes makes the ticket tooo expensive for us to move around…. Leave UK do what they have to do to boost their economy, and besides they want to promote regional travel (i.e travel around europe) i think we should too!!!!
Now the regional governments should remove all taxes on air travel throughout the region…. These taxes are making it too expensive for us to visit our sister islands!!!!!!
The caribbean governments need to reduce the taxes on the LIAT tickets too.
This is a serious issue, as all trans-atlantic flight fares have significantly increase. For example: LGW to ANU is now £900+ for November 2012. This can negatively affect caribbean tourism.
Let’s fight the good fight, for a good cause.
if you all have no real site… do you all put a link in the website area smh