Air passenger duty: Holidaymakers could be owed around £44.7m in APD refunds

Holidaymakers across the UK could be owed refunds in air passenger duty (APD) as the little-known fee is often not reclaimed, a new study has found.

Brits who cancelled a booking, missed a flight or had their flight cancelled, may be entitled to an APD refund, yet in the chaos of switching to another flight or replanning a journey, people may miss that they can claim money back.

Research by financial comparison website Go.Compare found that while one in 10 Brits could be eligible for a refund, more than three-quarters of these flyers are unaware they can claim it.

APD is a tax on airlines and aircraft operators automatically charged for passengers flying from a United Kingdom or Isle of Man airport to both domestic and international destinations.

It is a tax on airlines, not on passengers, but most airlines pass this cost on through ticket prices, a decision that is up to the airline.

However, the tax is only payable once the traveller has flown, meaning that someone who bought a plane ticket, but did not end up travelling can potentially claim this tax, even if the ticket is non-refundable, Go.Compare says.

Those who can claim an APD refund are usually those who missed a flight and bought a new ticket for another one, cancelled a booking for a non-refundable plane ticket or if their flight was cancelled and were not given a new flight.

By assessing a YouGov survey of 2,000 UK residents and studying data from HMRC and the Civil Aviation Authority, they estimate that around 3.6 million UK adult flyers could be owed this refund without even realising it.

The researchers believe that UK holidaymakers could be owed an estimated £44.7m in total in air passenger duty refunds.

The comparison website says that some eligible travellers could be owed from £7 up to a staggering £244, depending on their destination and what class they were due to fly in.

However, airlines have their own policies and ways to go about claiming a refund that may differ from one another.

Ryanair says passengers are only entitled to a government tax refund if they have paid such taxes at the time of their booking, and have an online form to apply for a refund within one month of the date of departure if they did not travel.

EasyJet says that if customers don’t take their flight they can claim a full APD refund by contacting the airline’s…