Aeroplanes are bad for the environment and Mr Willy Walsh should show more ownership.

Willie Walsh argues (Evening Standard, 22-11-16) that air passenger duty should be abolished because it is having an adverse effect on the British economy that is greater than the value of tax raised. He says 61,000 new jobs will be created by the additional tourism and other jobs created by getting rid of the tax

He acknowledges , explicitly in the case of Ireland but it is implied clearly for the U.K. as a whole, that the tax has reduced the number of passengers and therefore the number of flights in and out of the U.K.  He also acknowledges that the reason that the tax was introduced was to address environmental issues.  That it has done so, by reducing the number of flights, is not disputed; he counters the point merely by saying that the tax collected has not been hypothesized for government expenditure aimed at benefiting the environment.

But even if the tax was supposed to be spent on cleaning up the air, which the government never promised, his argument is entirely specious. The fact is that the number of flights is lower than it would have been otherwise. Job done, even if in a clumsy and inefficient way, as is usually the case when taxation is used to indirectly support government aspirations that it is too cowardly to introduce directly.

And given that aviation is a significant contributor to air pollution however you look at it, Mr Walsh's position is not dissimilar to that of the tobacco industry spokesperson arguing that tobacco duty is wrong because it reduces the number of cigarettes sold.

If Mr Walsh is serious he needs first to acknowledge that aviation is bad for air quality and say what he, and the rest of his industry, will do to tackle the problem, cut the number of people killed every year by his impact on air quality in and around major cities and on the climate change caused by Carbon dioxide from his jet engines. When he comes up with a solution to this problem he can come back and argue against air passenger duty and the depressing effect it has on his profits, which at the end of the day is probably all he is interested in.