Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what percentage of total Air Passenger Duty receipts was attributable to (a) domestic and short-haul flights and (b) long-haul flights in the most recent financial year for which data is available.

Air Passenger Duty (APD) applies to airlines, rather than individual passengers, and is the principal tax on the aviation sector. APD is charged on passengers travelling on aircraft departing from airports in the UK, with the rate of duty determined by the distance to a passenger’s final destination and the class of travel. From April 2023, APD operates across four destination bands:

• Domestic, covering flights within England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
• Band A, where the distance from London to the country’s capital is up to 2,000 miles
• Band B, where the distance is between 2,001 miles and 5,500 miles, and
• Band C, where the distance is over 5,500 miles.

Airline operators declare the number of chargeable passengers by destination band and by rate. However, APD receipts are not attributable to distance travelled, and therefore this is not information that HMRC collects.