ABTA has written to the Treasury asking for more detail on its planned changes to the way Air Passenger Duty is charged following the pre-Budget announcement recently.

It said it wants to see the proposals, in detail, and has written to the Treasury.

ABTA's Head of Policy David Marshall said: "We have contacted The Treasury asking them for details of the proposed flight tax.

"There are a number of questions we want answering, for example, will the flight tax replace APD, if not why not? At what level will the flight tax be levied? How will the flight tax be collected?

"Once again the aviation and tourism industry has been targeted by this Government, last year it was doubling of APD, in 2009 a flight tax. Let's get the answers to our questions."

British Airways has called on the Government to scrap Air Passenger Duty and instead join the EU emissions trading scheme.

Reacting to the Government's decision in the pre-Budget report to charge APD per aircraft rather than per passenger from November 2009, a BA spokesman said: "There is no evidence to suggest that APD has been used to fund environmental initiatives and there will be no guarantee that a flight based tax will either.

"Our share of APD revenue for the government is now £400 million a year. With this money the government could offset our entire C02 emissions four times over.

"Once aviation is included in the EU scheme, we expect APD or any replacement tax to be ended."

"This is just another tax on ordinary passengers from Government ministers swanning around on private aircraft," stormed Ryanair.

"This Labour Government lied when it proposed to spend the £1bn raised from doubling APD on the environment. Not a penny has been spent on the environment and they are back stealing more from ordinary passengers going on holidays."

But First Choice Airways and Thomsonfly have welcomed the announcement that Air Passenger Duty will be levied on planes and not on passengers.

The two airlines said they are keen to be involved in the forthcoming consultation into the tax and understand how it will be structured.

However, they say the money raised should be used for environmental projects to mitigate the impact of flying, not used simply as a way to generate more money from the aviation industry.

TUI's Tim Williamson explained: "The current APD structure makes absolutely no sense, so we welcome the new consultation, but only if the Treasury is going to take its responsibilities seriously and ensure the money raised from APD will go to projects that have environmental benefits"

EasyJet welcomed the Chancellor's decision to charge Air Passenger Duty per aircraft instead of per passenger from 2009.

"This is the right decision and we look forward to working with the government on a new structure that properly reflects the pollution levels of different aircraft types and the distance flown by those aircraft," it said in a statement.

"While it is right that aviation should be taxed more intelligently, easyJet cautions that this must not be used as a Trojan Horse to increase the overall of levels of tax from airline passengers.