Since 1994 all passenger flights out of the UK have been subject to APD or Airline Passenger Duty, basically a tax on everyone who leaves the UK on a plane – important as you dont pay on say Eurostar!  In 1994 this was just £5 for a economy short haul, say a flight to Barcelona or £20 for the economy long haul to say Sydney.  Well at the end of last year (November 1st) these went up again to £12 for economy short haul and £85, yes £85 for economy long haul.

The Dutch however have taken a different route, they got rid of their passenger tax after just 12 months when it was discovered that the cost to the economy was 1 billion euros and the Dutch government had taken just 300 million euros in revenue.

So my top tip is, do your sums before you book the flight, for example; for a family of four to fly to New York you pay £340 in tax before you even get a flight price, so can you get to Amsterdam Schiphol for less, bear in mind these wont be connecting flights, but even so can you save ?

Silverjet at Luton

So began the story of Silverjet ‘The World’s most Sivilised Airline’.

Silverjet in essence was a British all-business class airline based at London Luton Airport that, prior to the suspension of operations (yes it unfortunately no longer operate’s) on 30 May 2008, operated services to Newark Liberty International Airport (New York) and Dubai International Airport.

Silverjet used its own private terminal at London Luton airport designed to speed up check-in and security procedures. Passengers could check in for a flight up to 30 minutes before take-off, can you do that with BA at Heathrow? The London Luton terminal was next to the main terminal and New York Newark Silverjet had their own check-in facilities and lounge on the arrivals deck.

Silverjet also made significant use of technology both in terms of booking but also promotion, check out Silverjet The Movie.

The thing that i really liked about Silverjet was there willingness to take on the competion head on, we live in a competitive world and Silverjet knew in the UK it need to get business passengers off the likes of BA to fill their seats, so they made themselves an advert….. does it remind you of anything?

So the final call unfortunately saw this airline go out of business in May 2008 which is a shame as it looked at a market and thought it could do it better, interestingly enough both Lufthansa and British Airways now have their own dedicated business class operations and British Airways launches a Business Class only operation from London City Airport later this year.