´óÏó´«Ã½

Air taxes are to rise by up to 55% making some trips unaffordable, the travel industry has warned.

The government said the rises were set by the previous Labour administration, and that reform was being considered.

´óÏó´«Ã½ News website readers have been explaining how they will be affected:

I try and visit my daughter in Canada once a year. When she first moved there it was every six months.

The first time I went out it cost me just over £200. Last time I went, in January 2010, it cost me over £1,000. I'm planning on going next July.

Door-to-door it takes me about 20 hours, but it's worth it.

When I first went over I was working and could pay for it myself. Now I'm a pensioner and I rely on her paying the vast majority of the fare.

It's the only chance I get to see her. I talk to her a lot and email her, and thank God for the internet, but it's not the same as actually seeing her and being in her life.

I'm an ex-pat Briton living and working in China, and I have a fixed home travel allowance from my company who leave it up to me to arrange my flights and tickets.

The way I shall minimise the costs is to fly via another European carrier whose hub is less than 2,000 miles from London Heathrow.

For example, if I flew Finnair from London to Beijing, going via Helsinki, in theory I would only be taxed on the London-Helsinki leg of the journey, rather than the higher rate on the whole journey flying direct from the UK.

If they tried to tax me on the whole journey, I'd just buy two separate tickets.

I don't see how the British government can legislate on flights originating outside of the UK. This seems to discriminate against British companies.

As a travel agent I find the continual increase of these taxes abhorrent. Every time they increase, my customers ask me why and every time I have no idea how to respond. They keep going up and nothing seems to change or improve.

I have no idea what these taxes fund, what the aim of them is, and certainly no idea why the government has to increase them so dramatically, so often.

From a long-haul perspective, it's getting to the point where the tax is more than the airfare. Everyone rolls their eyes at them as they are, but when they go up I think some people are likely to think twice about booking.

I deal with the middle and top end of the market, including the Caribbean. The changes are going to have a big impact on holidays to those destinations.

It'll push a three-figure sum for a family holiday to a four-figure one, which is a big mental leap for people travelling.

I am a pensioner with a son and our only grandchild living in America, and a daughter just about to move to Australia.

We tend to fly twice a year to the US and will be flying the same number of times to Australia once our daughter emigrates. It looks like we may have to cut back on trips.

I'm in my late 60s and because of the length of the flight, I would like to travel premium economy going out to Australia, so I'm a little bit more comfortable. But now I'm considering travelling economy instead so it's still affordable.

It'll probably be the final straw for some people now you have to pay for things like the ESTA [Electronic System for Travel Authorisation] as well.

It seems like it's the little man who ends up paying for green measures when there are plenty of other areas that could be tackled first.