Airport Passenger Duty: "Passengers in the UK pay 12-15 times more than in Europe. We’ve done all the lobbying we can. There needs to be more balance because aviation is a driver of economic growth."
Yep, it's an absolute disgrace what we pay here.
On the subject of AY and HEL, I have been using them pretty regularly to Asia in the last 12-18 months. They have some great prices in J and as others have said, transitting at HEL is very easy.
Having said that I went to HKG last week on LX via ZRH, who also have a short transit time. However, the bussing to and from the bird in ZRH is a little frustrating at times. I am hoping that the new B pier at ZRH for non schengen flights opening shortly means the MAN flights will stop us being crammed on the bus.
I sadly don't tend to get many firsts at MAN these days so I was pleasantly surprised and bemused to land 'the wrong way' on runway 2 a couple of days ago. I have never even seen another aircraft do that!. I have actually taken off 'the wrong way' on that runway once about 5 years ago on a very full SQ 772ER nonstop to SIN, where we taxied down, turned around on the loop at the bottom and took off. On Sunday we just spun around on the runway and came back.