Fairford Air Tattoo

Air Tattoo drops charitable status logo from website

By Joe on 18/10/2010
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Following the recent protest and complaints to the charities commission calling for an end to the Fairford Air Tattoo's Charitable status, the Air Tattoo has now dropped the "working to support RAF Charitable Trust" logo from it's website.

In a recent blog we highlighted the major issues and controversy surrounding the Fairford Air Tattoo event and a week on, it has been revealed that the logo on the Air Tattoo website has now been dropped.

This is an admission on their side that they should never have been operating as a charity. Up to now, they have always played the charity hand in all their advertising, with the implication that if you buy a ticket you are contributing to a worthy cause. It is therefore clear that they have been fraudulently trading.

The Fairford Air Tattoo accounts show only 0.3% of their sales go to helping injured service personnel, and for an event that is so environmentally unsustainable, for it to be branded a charity, it is outright wrong.

A call to end the Fairford Air Tattoo's charitable status

By Joe on 30/09/2010
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Source: Flickr

A big campaign against the Fairford Air Tattoo's RAF charitable status has just formed. The Fairford Air Tattoo is one of the largest air shows in the world and each year tonnes and tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions are created by the event, polluting the atmosphere in a major way. And for what - a bit of entertainment?

A new campaign group called The Royal Internation Air Tattoo - No Thanks (RIAT-NT) has formed to campaign against one of the most unsustainable events of the year in Britain. The Fairford Air Tattoo is one of the largest air shows there is with over 155,000 tickets sold last year. A lot of those tickets went to people who then flew over to watch the flying show. The event is extremely controversial in the Gloucesterchire region and is deeply resented by many local people. It also makes a complete mockery of personal sacrifices being made at a local level due to individuals concerns about climate change.

As well as the climate impacts there is also the question over the validity of encouraging youngsters into aviation. The charitable trust's website states that "at the heart of the trust is it's commitment to young people, to initiate and develop within them an enthusiasm for aviation and all it's guises." Young people face a bleak future as a consequence of runaway climate change and will have to learn how to live in a low carbon future. Being sucked into becoming the new generation to push the aviation agenda is definetly not the right step.

Financially the aviation industry is highly subsidized compared to other industries. It receives £9 billion annually in fuel tax exemptions and there is also no VAT on ticket sales. Charitable support is definetly not needed.

To find out more check out: http://www.riat-nt.blogspot.com/

To sign the petition go to: http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/riatnt