Originally Posted by
mwm991
Between APD and throwing public money at the Prestwick white elephant, the SNP are making a dog's dinners of aviation in Scotland, and also without a centralised hub like the Irish do with Dublin, Scotland will always be vulnerable to losing service like this, anyway. Very disappointing, IMO.
SNP bashing is not really necessary here. As a minority government they cannot simply do what they want. They tried to get backing for it, but other parties politicised the budget and it ultimately only go through with green support, who would never agree to an APD cut....and didn't. The EU legislation issues were also cited as a reason and although there is some truth in that, I think personally it was over Exaggerated somewhat and a solution could have been found.
I do agree the SNP could be better with aviation, but this one is not solely down to them, it was a combined effort...or lack thereof.
As we see though, other airliners don't appear to have an issue with APD in Scotland. Ryanair scrapped some GLA routes, mumbling about APD, but have now announced they are going to bring them back, so presumably they were making more money than they let on. Jet2.com have nothing bad to say about APD, they have grown and continue to grow in spite of the rates and have shown no real sign of supporting a cut or withdrawal, they are more or less neutral on it. If APD is such an issue then no one appears to have told the airlines who have all flocked to Scotland in recent years. Norwegian, in all honesty, have a few internal issues that need attention.