I think APD is pathetic like... £5, even £10 for a return flight I could put up with but the amount the charge is criminal. Can the government not see the damage APD is doing? Especially in the regions (not that they should care, they don't have to worry about us or deal with us too much). When was APD introduced?
Anyway they have Belfast as a prime example that APD devolution is beneficial, and that was thanks to United, to be honest I hope United say the same as they did to the Northern Ireland government and at least get our long haul APD devolved, would certainly get UA in EK's good books.
I don't think EZY's done much, no net increase, but Split was nice of them, and IMO shows they can fill more niche routes, LS didn't seem to be able to make it work but as yet EZY seems happy with it. TCX is the same, no net increase, still waiting in hope that we'll get 3 A321's based one day. TOM... Difficult one, sometimes it seems like they might be toying with some kind of expansion, is it 3 extra weekly flight's they've outsourced to foreign carriers for S16? PMI, LPA and ALC?
Jet2 is the only one who's increased the amount of based A/C, but I'd be willing to say that the amount of seats lost when TOM/TXC/LS went from 757's to 738's still wont have been recovered, even with Ryanair and an extra 738 from LS, that's probably the biggest hit we've taken in recent years. I believe we had 9 757's based in 2011...? And lost 46 seats per aircraft, roughly 184 seats per day over 9 aircraft lost... Not a small amount
Fingers crossed EZY might be looking at other avenues for their 4 weekly slots, see what they come up with, although it might just be for winter, RYR/VY potentially exacerbating the already lower demand
I'd be surprised if Malta was getting cut, Air Malta just left the market and I was under the impression that LS and EZY were doing well