Curious loophole in Scottish air tax that could save £1,500

We found similar savings on flights to Singapore (£149 per person or £596 for a family of four). We also found one British Airways flight to Melbourne, where starting a trip from Inverness in premium economy seats via Heathrow saved £474 per ticket compared to booking from Heathrow (a saving of £1,896 for a family of four).

Big! So how do I get to Inverness?

Here’s the rub. Even if you live in Scotland, to use the Inverness loophole you’ll likely have to take a long and expensive train – around three and a half hours from Glasgow or Edinburgh.

For the rest of the UK, opening the loophole will require a very long journey, a very long train journey or, more likely, a short flight. When you factor in the cost of booking return flights to Inverness, the savings become less impressive: typical domestic flights to Inverness range from £50 to £100.

Flights to Inverness are also sporadic and may not coincide with your departure time. And Inverness only has domestic flights to and from London (Gatwick, Luton and Heathrow), Manchester, Belfast and Bristol, meaning the loophole would not be viable for most of the population.

Is Inverness the only airport affected by this loophole?

No. There are a number of airports in the Highlands and Islands area where passengers do not need to pay APD. These are: Barra, Benbecula, Campbeltown, Dundee, Inverness, Islay, Kirkwall, Stornoway, Sumburgh, Tyree and Wick. However, although there are occasional flights from Dundee to Heathrow or Campbeltown to Glasgow, only Inverness has enough departures for this loophole to be practically exploitable.