Everyone asks

Michael Gebicki answers common travel-related questions.

ARE CITY PASSES GOOD VALUE? Some are, others almost certainly not. In Paris, for example, you would need to visit the Louvre, the Palace of Versailles, Musee d’Orsay, Notre Dame, the Pompidou Centre and the Rodin Museum to come close to getting your money’s worth out of the two-day, 117 ($185) Paris Pass, and that’s impossible.

On the other hand, the two-day Paris Museum Pass at 42 ($66) gives you free entry to all the above, minus a few frilly extras that the Paris Pass provides. Deciding whether to go with a city pass involves working out what you want to visit and how much it’s going to cost.

For example, a three-day adult London Pass costs £81 ($160). Adult admission to the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey and Windsor Castle averages around £20 ($40) each and if you can pack at least five such topdrawer attractions into three days, you’re on a winner. However, admission to many of London’s top museums and galleries, including The British Museum, The Science Museum and the Tate Modern, is free.

One persuasive argument in favour of city passes is that they allow you to bypass ticket queues. At the peak of summer, you can easily spend two hours waiting to buy a Louvre ticket. With a Paris Museum Pass in hand, you skip straight to the front, and that makes it worth its weight in gold. WHY IS A TICKET TO PARIS SO MUCH CHEAPER THAN LONDON? A return economy class fare costs at least $200 more to fly to London than it does to Paris, and more on business class. The reason is the higher fees and taxes air travellers face in the UK. The Air Passenger Duty (APD), the UK Government’s departure tax, is currently £94 ($183) for economy-class on a long-haul flight, and £188 ($367) for business-class on the same flight.

In France, air-departure taxes are 10 times lower than in Britain, while Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands axed the equivalent tax altogether.

In addition, the landing charges at London Heathrow are relatively high at £20.71 ($40) per passenger.

Airlines have been jumping up and down and the British government has responded. From April 1 next year passengers flying to all long-haul destinations will pay the same rate of APD as they do to fly to the United States, which will mean a reduction of £23 ($44) for an economy-class passenger on a long-haul flight.

At the beginning of this year Britain’s airport regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority, bowed to pressure from airlines to cut charges at Heathrow.

To be phased in over five years, starting in April this year, the change will eventually mean a reduction of £1.61 ($3) per passenger. Small beer perhaps, but a sign at last that the British government acknowledges that bleeding the airline passenger to death is not a fruitful strategy.