On 2005-11-07, Mike Rapoport wrote:
In any event the best solution is unlikely to be architected by the same
people who have been running the airline or airliner businesses. I think
that everyone can agree on this at least!

In particular, even where GA pays handsomely, the airlines still whine
they are cross-subsidising GA. Here, for avgas, we pay probably over
$1/litre in excise duty and VAT (VAT being a tax tax, because a fair bit
of the VAT is a consequence of paying the excise duty. VAT should only
apply on the price of the product pre-other-taxes, but that's a rant for
another day). We also pay handsomely per use for CAA services. However,
the airlines argue that they are cross subsidising GA by conveniently
ignoring the crushingly high fuel taxes (they pay none) and the fact
that most GA airports in this country are essentially privately owned,
receiving no taxpayers money. The real story is that the airlines really
just want exclusive use of the sky (by pricing GA out of existence).

--
Dylan Smith, Port St Mary, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Oolite-Linux: an Elite tribute: http://oolite-linux.berlios.de
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net