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.
The consequences of Labour's botched devolution arrangements and the failure to answer the "West Lothian" question. Labour was warned about the potential breakup of the UK by Tam Dalyell, Frank Field and others, but was in too much of a hurry to do the job properly. Labour may reap what it sowed on 7th May. Some may call it karma.
Unfortunately the toothpaste cannot be put back in the bottle. That said, it makes no sense to devolve APD rates for all the reasons listed above. The most benign APD structure is no APD, or phasing it out by a series of rate reductions, not by geography.
If the short-haul rate of APD needs to go up by £3 or £4 to pay for a reduction in the medium/long haul rates then so be it. I don't think any Government left or right will write off £3 billion. As an aside will the Scottish Govt. keep APD in its present form as Cyprus is more than 2,000 miles from Edinburgh....
Disagree, no rate of APD should be rising. Scrapping APD is said to be a boost to business and the economy as whole. The loss of revenue from APD could be more than compensated by income from other taxation.