For those who like to cut costs and go via a 3rd party country, you can start to cross Germany off your list, as they will be introducing a varient of Air Passenger Duty called “Luftverkehrssteuer”
This kicks off on 1st January 2011. Like APD they’ve assigned countries into zonal distances, with the radial point being Frankfurt.
Details are at http://www.bundesregierung.de/Content/DE/Artikel/2010/09/2010-09-01-luftverkehrssteuer.html or for those who’s German isn’t too hot, try http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev;=_t&hl;=en&ie;=UTF-8&layout;=2&eotf;=1&sl;=de&tl;=en&u;=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bundesregierung.de%2FContent%2FDE%2FArtikel%2F2010%2F09%2F2010-09-01-luftverkehrssteuer.html
In simpler terms however:
Zone 1 – €8 Countries (up to 2500km from Frankfurt):
All of Europe (incl Russia)
Zone 2 – €25 Countries and zones (from 2500km to 6000km from Frankfurt)
Middle of Africa (incl Egypt), Caucasus region, Middle East region and parts of Asia.
Zone 3 €45 Countries > 6000 km
Everywhere else in the world.
Unlike APD, this is in any class of travel (where APD has a discounted and a full price zoning system, split into 4 zones).
Which means going long haul from Germany will cost a bit more – but will still be cheaper than going from London.
But it’s yet another travel tax.
Vielen Dank Deutschland….
