I have just booked my flights to the Dam for January , with Easy jet total cost of flights £42 return , total cost including taxes, insurance ,hold luggage, £82 , still the cheapest around , i remember not so long ago it was the price of the flight plus £5 tax each way, now it's the tax is nearly the same as the flight , and it could be dearer with speedy boarding.

All this tax is supposed to help the environment, but i have yet to see what the government have spent on this stealth tax , there is no justification in nearly 100% tax

I checked Ba and Bmi and it's £98 each way with tax.

I think you'll find that much of this is actually a "fuel and security surcharge", and I think the airline is getting this and not the Government.

See link below for a start to the wonders of surcharges on UK originating flights:

http://www.caa.co.uk/default.aspx?catid ... ageid=2449

Elgonzo;

You are being taxed on both ends by both countries....read on......


THE HAGUE (AFP) - Some 50,000 fewer passengers are expected to use Amsterdam Schiphol airport, one of Europe's busiest, this summer on account of a Dutch environmental tax on flights, it was reported Saturday.

"We're expected zero growth in 2008, and in fact a decrease (in passenger numbers) in July and August," an airport spokesman was quoted as saying by the domestic ANP news agency.

The Netherlands is the only country that levies an environmental tax on flights departing the country -- 11.25 euros per passenger (17.75 dollars) for European destinations and 45 euros for intercontential points.

With higher fuel prices pushing up air fares worldwide, travel industry experts say the tax will hurt business at Schiphol and see many Dutch travellers go to nearby German airports instead.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080628/bs ... 0628184554

Ive just booked a trip to the dam for later on this year with flights with KLM.
Last year these flights would have cost about £90 all in. This year it is now £145, but the interesting (painful) bit is the breakdown. Flights = £46 Taxes = £99. It is getting ridiculous now and with the euro exchange rate how long before people just cannot afford it any more.

The tax part of the flights is a bit of a misnomer I think. Carriers like Easyjet and Ryanair who basically 'own' the airports where they mostly fly from get a cut of the tax that's taken by the airport. They also get a cut of things like car parking.

They also overstate the amount of tax whilst minimising the fare to make out that they are cheap and that it's factors outside their control that are bumping up the price.. whereas in reality oil at $140+ a barrel is going to hurt everyone who flies sooner or later.

southampton to amsterdam with flybe is £68.69 at its cheapest

It's a bit of a nasty shock after having booked your flight, as I did some months ago with BMI, to have to stump up an extra £9.50 to cover the new airport tax at Schipol.

Had to do the same thing last year with EasyJet I think, although for UK tax reasons this time. It hardly breaks the bank, but its obviously a shame the era of dirt cheap flights is over, it seems. When I started going back to the Dam in 2003, the cost of the return flight from Liverpool to Schipol was less than £50.00 (booked well in advance).

While it's not great to see tax increases on airfare prices, the fact remains that it is still cheap, all things considered (from the UK at least, and booked in advance).

davey's right. returns from uk are still less than £100 all in which has to be compared with what you shell out while you're there.




ANYDAY.

I just booked my flight last week for 9 weeks time. Easyjet £66.09 all in! Bristol - Amsterdam. Lubly Jubly!

totally fed up with LHR

so, just booked up Flybe from SOU in october.

out £2.19
ret £2.19

tax £62

total £66.38

15 min car ride instead of 1hr 30mins
car park £10 instead of £28

same time/day flight with BMI £125

total saving £81 !!!! + petrol

thats what I do man. used to get train to london and go from there. Then I used my brain and realised I could go from Scumhampton instead :) The train to London almost cost as much these days as the air fare

Pardon my ignorance greenhoff, but why did you not use Southampton before if you're right near it??

amsterman

many reasons
1 im a frequent flyer on BMI and get loads of bonus"s
2.SOU to AMS is done by twin prop planes, which i hate, as im 6ft 7in and 17st and there is no leg room at all

having just read travellers views on flybe, i have now cancelled my booking, and back up to jolly old LHR

Here is a more in-depth article on the tax(ing) situation....

Flying Dutchmen Depart From Germany to Avoid Local Airport Tax
By Jurjen van de Pol and Joram Kanner

July 25 (Bloomberg) -- Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport expects fewer passengers than it had a year ago today, traditionally the busiest day of the year. It has nothing to do with rising fuel prices or the economy: Travelers and airlines blame a new tax.

This month the Dutch government imposed a national departure tax of as much as 45 euros ($71) on each ticket, making Schiphol Europe's most expensive airport after London's Heathrow, a government-commissioned study showed in March. The tax, expected to raise 350 million euros a year, seeks to slow traffic growth and make travelers aware of the environmental costs of flying.

The charge has sent travelers looking for cheaper alternatives in Belgium and Germany, about 130 miles away. The levy may cut Air France-KLM Group's Dutch passenger numbers by as many as 1 million this year and slow job creation at the state- owned airport, the airline and a government planning agency say.

``This is outrageous; this tax goes directly into the Treasury and doesn't benefit the environment,'' said Frank Riesenbeck, 55, who now uses Dusseldorf International in Germany for his frequent flights to Belgrade, Serbia. Doing that ``saves me 100 euros per round trip, excluding the cheaper parking costs at Dusseldorf.''

Schiphol's departure costs for intercontinental flights, including security charges, rose to about 70 euros after the tax was introduced. The duty lifts ticket prices for European destinations, including Turkey and Morocco, by 11.25 euros and adds 45 euros for destinations more than 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) away, such as Washington and Sydney.

London More Expensive
Passengers who fly from London Heathrow to cities outside Europe pay at least 73 pounds (92.50 euros) in charges, of which 40 pounds is a government-imposed passenger duty. At Frankfurt Airport, travelers pay 25 euros. Brussels Airport charges 24 euros and Dusseldorf 19 euros.

``I'm already looking for alternatives for Schiphol as these are considerably cheaper,'' said Charlotte Kok, a 19-year-old student from Utrecht, the Netherlands, who flies to New York three times a year.
The government says the new revenue will be used to lower other taxes and invest in the environment, education and security. Airline tickets are exempt from the value-added tax, unlike train travel or cars, Jan Kees de Jager, the state secretary of finance, said in May.

``That's strange as the environmental damage from flying is hefty,'' he said. The tax may lower annual carbon dioxide emissions by 1.5 megatons by slowing passenger growth, the Finance Ministry estimates.

Fewer Jobs
Evert Hassink, a policy adviser at Friends of the Earth Netherlands, said his group would rather see an international tax on jet fuel and a distinction between more- and less-polluting airplanes.

``But we support this tax as flying is a big environmental burden and people need to be aware of that,'' he said.
Schiphol expects the number of passengers it handles to remain at 47.8 million this year, after growing 3.8 percent in 2007. That will prevent the creation of as many as 10,000 jobs at the airport, according to an October forecast by the government planning agency. About 62,000 people work at Schiphol.

Today, usually Schiphol's busiest because Dutch travelers leave for vacations on the final Friday in July, there will be 55,500 departures, down from 56,500 a year ago, said airport spokeswoman Mirjam Snoerwang. About 42 percent of travelers are in transit and don't have to pay the departure tax.

``We already see 50,000 less passengers in July and August,'' Snoerwang said. ``The volume of departing passengers may actually fall this year.''

Competitive Issue
A quarter of Dutch travelers bypass the tax by flying from German or Belgian airports, a survey of 43,500 people by ING Groep NV's Postbank unit showed July 21.

``It is very likely the departure tax will have a negative result on Schiphol's competitiveness,'' the government- commissioned report said in March.

The appeals court in The Hague on July 17 dismissed a lawsuit challenging the tax filed by Ryanair Holdings Plc, Europe's biggest discount airline. The court said the levy doesn't violate the Convention on International Civil Aviation, known as the Chicago Convention, as it only taxes passengers and not aircraft. Schiphol and the Dutch Association of Travel Agents have also sued.

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, which operates the most flights from Schiphol and handled 23.4 million travelers last year, expects to lose as many as 1 million passengers because of the tax, spokeswoman Marisca Kensenhuis said in an e-mail. The airline, part of Air France-KLM Group, may shift intercontinental flights to Aeroports de Paris's Charles de Gaulle.

`Out of Principle'
EasyJet Plc, Europe's second-biggest discount airline, forecasts the tax will reduce the number of passengers it carries from Schiphol by 15 percent to 1.1 million from April through October, compared with the same period last year, spokesman Oliver Aust said in an e-mail. The airline plans to increase flights out of Brussels partly because of the tax.

``I would almost fly from abroad out of principle because I think this tax only benefits the Dutch government,'' said Quinten Cieremans, 42, a swimming instructor from The Hague, on his way to the Spanish island of Ibiza.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jurjen van de Pol in Amsterdam jvandepol@bloomberg.netJoram Kanner in Amsterdam at jkanner@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: July 24, 2008 18:09 EDT


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... VUnJbz.3Ig