The economy is very slightly picking up.
So maybe we need to give more credit to The government.
We all make good arm chair politicians. But look how old n ill they get and loose the youthfull optimism after a while ( Blair never did).
What needs to happen to help ALL airport's.
Two choices. Keep Apd. Raise it 2% For example for the highest passanger figure airport's.
Have a sliding scale of charges going down the airports leaderboard.
Smaller operations like Dtv Dsa Huy (quiet as Dtv aint they?).
Would pay no duty.
Or these new breed of startup airports Cambridge n Oxford et al.
A government Subsidy for domestic routes and routes to Amsterdam. Or frankfurt.
That would drive the prices down n hopefully bring in the airlines..
Give an regional development fund style payment to the struggling airport's for abfixed period of say seven to Ten years.
Hell offer Ryanair a grant from the fund to bring a few new routes ditto others such as easyJet
Then set a limit to how long rhe grant apllies.
If a route worked had high numbers thw grant would formally cease.
Now thats when it would be interesting Would Ryanair stay or go.
The government could also nationalise an airport like they did with rail.
Put in Baa. Etc .
There has to be out of the box thinking to fix this.
Its not just Dtv. Its airports all over.
If we must have apd scrap it and replace it with an air movement's tax..
How much revenue is lost from the nightly mail flights Ema is crawling all day n night with cargo flights.
Tax then..
Have a token negligiblely small Ga tax. And theb suddenly in come more revenue. .
Or scrap Apd.
Or increase the passenger fee at dtv and others by 1 or 2 pounds.
Divide that over the month and pay it to the airlines as a sweetner to come to the airport n try some routes.
Make it mandatory for such routes to the hubs to be timed to acrually allow onward connection with time to spare.
Or..
Scrap
Apd
Passanger tax
Lobby governance
For a bailout repayble when the recovery has happened
All airports should be viable.
And network rail should partner with the airports to determine needed rail passanger and freight links.
Dtv will recover but id bet slowly but steadily.
Im honestly expecting someone like Vueling or some other new loco to come knocking