UK Budget Sparks Aviation Backlash Over APD Hikes

After the United Kingdom government unveiled its new budget, the air travel industry has criticized parts of the budget, including the growing air passenger duty (APD), which, for some destinations, is set to almost double.

On November 26, 2025, shortly after the UK government announced its 2025 budget, the British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA) said that the new budget was “bad news for the aviation industry.”

Rising APD will hit holiday-going families the hardest, BALPA stated, adding that the budget also failed to “address the UK’s urgent need to train new pilots.”

Alice Sorby, the Director for Strategy and Reform at BALPA, reiterated that the budget was “bad news” for aviation, not only because the government has ignored the union’s calls and increased the APD, but also because it “has missed an opportunity to deliver any measures that will make [pilots’] eye-watering training costs more affordable.”

Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA), an association of tour operators and travel agents, stated that it has been “concerned about the cumulative impact of taxes and levies on travel businesses and consumers.”

The UK government first announced the increases in 2024, and with the newest budget, APD will rise accordingly with the retail price index (RPI), rounded to the nearest penny, from April 1, 2027. The rates from April 1, 2026, “will be further adjusted to partially account for previous high inflation.”

Furthermore, having initially proposed the measure during the last budget, the higher APD rate will also apply for all private jets with a maximum takeoff weight (MTOW) of more than 5.7 tonnes. The measure should increase the government’s revenues by around £10 million ($13.2 million) per year from April 1, 2027, onward.

In a previous study about APD, commissioned by Airlines UK, an association uniting such airlines as British Airways, easyJet, Ryanair, Virgin Atlantic, and others, concluded that the tax represented around 16% of a short-haul ticket’s price in 2017, and 18% of a long-haul ticket’s. APD raised around £3.4 billion ($4.4 billion) during the year.

An abolition of the APD would boost the profitability of routes with “marginal viability,” and for routes with “greater demand,” would lower prices and increase demand. “Or in other words, if APD was abolished, the viability threshold for adding new connections would be lower,” the study concluded.

In an opinion blog on November 7, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimated that in 2025-2026, APD should raise £4.2 billion ($5.5 billion) for the UK’s budget, adding that the tax has been “a drag on UK connectivity and competitiveness.”

APD is split into three rates: reduced, standard, and higher. Reduced is for passengers flying “in the lowest class of travel available on the plane for seat pitches less than 1.016 metres (40 inches),” standard applies to any other travel class, and higher rates are levied on passengers flying in aircraft that seat fewer than 19 passengers but have an MTOW of 20 tonnes or more, which will change to 5.7 tonnes from April 1, 2027.

Different rates apply for different destinations, including domestic and destinations situated 2,000 miles (Band A), 2,001 to 5,500 miles (Band B), and over 5,500 miles (Band C) away. The distance is calculated from London to the country’s capital.

So, for example, destinations within the United States, including Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, would fall into Band B.

The APD is charged per passenger, based on where their journey ends.

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