If, as suggested on the Flight Deck Runours and News Forum, EasyJet will come out in favour of the proposed changes to Air Passenger Duty, Heathrow may well be hit significantly. The proposal on the table is that instead of the individual passenger being hit for a charge on each flight, the aircraft would be charged a flat fee per flight based on ..... something.
BA are apparently already protesting that 34% of their LHR passengers are transfer from other UK airports and if the change came into force they would be at a competitive disadvantage as their transfer passengers would be hit twice for the new APD. Being honest about it, I don't have any sympathy whatsoever for BA on this. Their continual management desire, aided & abetted by BAA, to drive everything & everyone through Heathrow & Gatwick has been hugely detrimental to everyone outside the extreme South East corner of the country. This might be enough of a kick in the fundamentals to get their attention and get them to restore the services that would legitimise the name as British Airways, rather than South East Airways, as it might be more appropriately described at present.
It's also more than a little unclear how scheduled (passenger) flights would handle passing this tax onto the self loading freight. [Lack of Government instructions as usual]
I've regularly flown on some flights which have been at the same times, dates, durations, aircraft etc. yet these have had loads ranging between 25% to 100%. Low Cost Carriers like EasyJet & Ryanair would probably have an easier time of it due to their flights having regular load factors over 75%. The big problem is that the charge will now apply to purely freight flights as well, so I guess that will result in increased costs to import and export goods, but will also effectively kill off Tech/Fuel stops for long haul freight - who wants to land where you will have to pay extra tax on top of your landing fees and fuel costs.
One thing I'd hate to see is a flight costing £200 to book online being hit with £1000 new APD tax just because the flight is quiet, but yet again, I somehow doubt that the much, if any of the tax raised by Air Passenger Duty has been spent by the Treasury on mitigation of carbon dioxide emissions.
However, if the LCC's do back the Government's latest plans, it will be difficukt for the legacy carriers to resist. So watch this space.