If the Government persists in escalating Air Passenger Duty on airline passengers over the next two years not only will families on medium and low incomes be prevented from flying, but many of the 700,000 jobs in the UK reliant on the aviation industry will be put at risk.

That was the warning from the British Airline Pilots' Association (BALPA) to delegates at the Trades Union Congress in Liverpool.

Speaking at the conference BALPA delegate Reg Allen said: Britain's civil aviation industry is in peril. Airline operators, great and small, are struggling for their continued existence.'

Reg Allan revealed that 192 routes from the UK to destinations abroad have been cut in the last 15 months and the contraction continues.

'Other European countries who have also set an Air Passenger Duty have scrapped it because of the world recession. They have understood the importance of their aviation industries to their economies,' Reg Allen declared.'We should do the same.'

The escalated Air Passenger Duty will mean that a family of four, visiting loved ones in South Africa, or going on holiday in the Caribbean during the winter of 2011 will pay Air Passenger Duties of £300 (£75 per passenger).

A MORI poll commissioned by BALPA, Reg Allen said, showed that 90 per cent of long haul passengers, flying from their regional airport, said they would rather fly to Amsterdam and go on from there rather than via London Heathrow, to avoid paying the UK Air Passenger Duty.

'There is a threat of British aviation jobs being exported to those countries nearest to us,' Reg Allen said.

'The Air Passenger Duty will not only damage UK aviation,' he continued, 'it will hit working people the hardest. It will prove to be, in our view, a Poll Tax of the Skies.

'The Government has touted the duty as a green tax but this is clearly not the case. The duty has not been ring-fenced to contribute to any environmental project.'