The airports should be forced to change their policy on landing slots. An airline should be able to pay for and keep their landing slot even if they dont use it. Therefore if a plane is empty or partially empty an airline could choose whether to use the slot or not. As the policy stands more planes are being forced into the air! Do green taxes really help the environment??? Large companies such as airlines have no problem paying up but this doesn't help the situation, does it!!

Paul Knowles, Swansea, UK

Environmental Taxes? Nonsense. There seems to be an assumption that travel is subject to control; through price mechanisms while it is clearly not. I live in a rural area and commute into Belfsat for work by private transport . There is no public transport near me and as that dear man Stephen Norris observed one never knows who you would meet or what you might catch! (Ask any sentient epidemiologist about public transport as a disease vector).
I run my Landrover on Bio Diesel which is a renewable (and its production reduces CO2 through photosynthesis in rape seed plants) and I cant understand why the Govt maintains a high tax take on this fuel as well as normal fossil based fuels. Its about raising revenue through what is essentially fixed consumption for most people, so please no more hollow words about 'green taxes'.

Dan Sweeney, Belfast, Northern Ireland

This seems to be really efficient..... Especially in times when everyone tries to cut emissions into the atmosphere...

Mario, Kloten, Switzerland

Change the way slots are allocated in return for not increasing aviation tax. Allocate slots on the proportion of seats sold not flights used. Allow ten % of slots to be reallocated each year based on the airline's efficiency not on their ability to buy slots.

David Cage, Highworth, UK

iirc, its also used for training flights...

Steve, preston,

Why not run cut-rate flights to some tropical destination during the winter instead of having idle plans and pilots?

I would think that would be a no-brainer, really.

Otherwise, I really don't understand why you couldn't sell tickets, even one pound tickets, to at least recoup some of your costs and maybe gain a PR benefit for the airline for selling super-cheap tickets.

David H Dennis, Monongahela, PA, USA

The Minimum Wage for starters, expat in Utah.

Vern, London,

. Most airlines run nearly empty planes in Winter (i.e. off season) to keep their slots. This destroys value for the airline (it costs money) as well as destroying the environment.

Mark, London, UK

Might not be ideal but at least we still have the chance to book flights during the winter...
The alternative would be less airlines/seats and higher ticket prices!

bob, Bobtown, UK

"the USSR tried it, the Eastern European countries attempted it - the Chinese tell us its great."

I said "real socialism", not the state-run capitalism that the USSR etc tried. Real socialism has never existed, and has absolutely nothing in common with leftie-style state-controlled capitalism. With real socialism, there will be no leader(s), no minority class ownership of the vital resources, no production for profit and sale in a market, and no money. The old Soviet Union had all of these.

Heinrich Dorfmann, Maidstone, UK

Tax, tax, tax! Cameron, Blair - it's all the same. All politicians want is more money in the Treasury from us so they can screw us down even more. If you don't believe me, tell me one thing that the Labour party has down since its 10 years in power to enrich the lives of ordinary British folk! Nil, nitch, nothing!!

Expat, Utah,

"The sooner we progress to real socialism, the better."
Heinrich Dorfmann, Maidstone, UK

My dear Heinrich - the USSR tried it, the Eastern European countries attempted it - the Chinese tell us its great. Take your pick.
You don't think much of it otherwise you would have gone East !

Pravin, uk,

Surely the one and only solution is to fly less. Filling the empty plane with tourists is just as pointless. We need te rearrange our lives so we use sustainable transport.

K, Glasgow,

Once again the actions of a very small minority (1 airline) will be used as green propaganda to indroduce another "green" tax.
The tories have grabbed this one instance (that airport authorities should have dealt with) as an excuse to tax millions of air travellers a year. Punish the airline for this waste and pollution not the people who actually use air travel.
It seems all too easy these days to punish consumers with levies and charges in the name of the envrioment, but will this tax reduce emissions? Is any of the revenue raised going to be used to develop renewable energy sources? In both cases I would say its very very doubtful.
What will the Great british public do about this unfair form of taxation? Nothing because it's an envriomental issue!
If empty seats is an issue what about the thousands of buses and trains that run empty every hour? Will a green tax be placed on bus and train tickets next? When will we start standing up to green taxes?

Steven Gurr, Preston, Lancs

Capitalism is an incredibly dumb and wasteful system for using resources, and while a rich and powerful minority class continue to own and control the means of production and distribution, this sort of madness will continue. The sooner we progress to real socialism, the better.

Heinrich Dorfmann, Maidstone, UK

Surely the solution would be to build more runways. You woud save on the carbon footprint purely by not having planes stacked above Heathrow for 30 minutes burning fuel waiting for landing slots and not having to resort to ghost flights to hold onto your slot. But of course we couldn't do the sensible thing as this would be 'seen' to be encouraging the global warming disaster that is going to kill us all in the next few years.

Simon Doncaster, Glasgow,

Seems utterly illogical to me - what 'benefit' does retaining -apparently at all costs - a SLOT that is quite obviously under-subscribed, and un-profitable? In my opinion the Airport Authority is to blame.

There is no reasonable excuse for them to be allowing empty planes flying backwards and forwards with no passengers on-board. Airport Congestion as it is the airport authority shouldbe making sure services offered at their airport are at least used by the public.

If I lived under the route of that airline I would be furious knowing that not a soul was on the plane.

This does not even begin to approach the environmental concerns I have, which are just as concerning.

A Miller, Edinburgh,

unless the rest of the world take on board this" carbon footprint " we are wasting our time, it may bring in extra tax tax but will do nothing for the damage to the enviroment. Cameron is a fool who has no hope of ever leading the country, placed by the party not to win the next election for fear that they may inherit the war.

kenny, hove,

I agree, it is absurd, but it is the mis-administration of the issuing of landing slots that is to blame, not the airline reacting to the phoney market so created. Why doesn't the authority simply auction the landing slots?
Why is "More Tax!" always seen as the solution to every problem? More tax means more government, government is by far the largest emitter of offensive gases - and this problem has been created by too much government.
Why not less tax on railways and cars? They are more carbon-efficient when the total journey is considered.
By the way, Rich, it's Avtur, not Avgas. They are very different.

Richard Cooper, Dunstable, UK

"Fine airlines that fly empty planes." Does Tony Juniper actually reside on planet earth? Making money in aviation is difficult at the best of times, does he seriously believe that airlines launch empty aircraft for the fun of it? The costs are huge, not limited to just the fuel. Sometimes they have to be flown empty to maintenance bases. BA have such a facility in Cardiff and service 747 and 777 aircraft there. Perhaps BA should be fined as their 747 service from Heathrow to Cardiff was not full!

Airlines are very focused on reducing fuel burns. They don't need "advice" from politicians or green campaigners when the high cost of fuel is already hitting the bottom line.

Mike, Congleton,

Why blame the airlines when they are governed by airport procedures? Surely it would be more sensible for airline companies to pay a retention fee for slots they arent using.

Mark, Ashington, United Kingdom

Surely discounted seats with a bit of canny advertising and a tie-up with hotels operating in Cardiff would be a better alternative?

Justin, Wuhan, China

Quite simply ridiculous. I am a frequent flyer and will go to great lengths to avoid flying through Heathrow. Why are airlines prepared to take such extreme measures to preserve their right to fly out of the worst airport in the developed world? It would make more sense to distribute flights around the UK and remove the need for feeder flights.

Paul, Thornton, UK

It is time to get international consensus on taxing avgas so that flights are taxed at a similiar rate to trains and cars.

Rich, Caterbury, UK

This report is just the 'tip of the vanishing iceberg'. Most airlines run nearly empty planes in Winter (i.e. off season) to keep their slots. This destroys value for the airline (it costs money) as well as destroying the environment.

Mark, London, UK

Most systems are not perfect and the runway system is far from it. Within the system it is probably quite logical to have these flights, although in the bigger picture it is absurd.
As for a tax on miles flown each year I think this is not a very sensible idea. It would be far more sensible to tax the airlines and therefore have an adjusted price that reflects this rather than produce an administrative nightmare of personal flight miles tax.

Andy, London, UK

Instead of imposing yet more tax on the long suffering traveller why don't the authorities take action against those airline operators that continue to use noisy and fuel inefficient engines which cause so much pollution by banning them from entering a particular country's airspace.

Paul, Bangkok, Thailand

All in the name of business.. Making money is far more important to some people. Disgusting.

brian willmer, chiang mai, thailand

Good work BMed - I like the out of the box thinking - and it's absolutely the right thing to have done! With pending Open Skies we want as many Heathrow slots held by UK airlines as possible.
And the environmentalists can't complain about a few CO2 emissions - yes, it was a nutty plan, but a necessary evil. Why don't all the green campaigners get out of their houses and support the governments plan to replace all light bulbs with energy efficient ones - this will ofset these flights 100 times over ... but no ... that's still five years away and no one really cares! so don't go jumping up and down about a few flights when there are some valid energy saving initiatives available to us, with real benefits, and nothing happens ! C'est la vie ...

Chris, New York, USA