NEWCASTLE - 8

[MerchantVenturer]

VentureGo

It's quite likely that APD powers will be devolved to Wales as well, especially if a Labour government is returned that relies on support from SNP and Plaid Cymru to run the UK.

That would put the owners of CWL in the enviable position of setting their own APD rates and the Labour-run Wales Assembly has already indicated its intention to slash or abolish APD. That would impact negatively on neighbouring English airports, especially BRS and possibly BHX to a lesser degree, if England remained under the current draconian British APD regime.

There might even be a chancellor of the exchequer responsible for setting English APD rates who represented a Welsh or Scottish constituency - it's happened in the recent past.

So it's quite possible that NCL would not be alone in having competing airports with a more benign APD structure not that it would be any consolation.