In my personal opinion, there should be fairer, differentiated bands of APD...
- Central London/Major airports in affluent areas: LCY, LHR and maybe LGW should pay full APD (£13/26 - £76/146)
- Outer london and +20 million ppa airports like LTN, STN, MAN should pay 75% current APD (£9.75/£19.50 - £57/£109.50)
- +10 million ppa airports should have APD devolved 50%: EDI and after this year BHX (£6.50/13 - £38/73)
- +5 million devolved to 25% current rate: GLA, BRS, hopefully soon NCL, LPL, BFS etc. (£3.25/£6.50 - £19/36.50)
- Airports of less than 5 million ppa should have APD fully devolved OR pay a standard flat rate of say... £5 per passenger in all classes of travel over all distances, perhaps 50% delivered back to the airport as a development fee
- Another potential band for consideration could be full devolution for airports with less than 1mppa, and/or full devolution on all non London domestic flights
This presents a lot of potential pros and cons. People who use LHR and LCY are always going to use LHR and LCY, fact... It's a high tax area anyway, why not pay full APD. The regions are much more marginal. Airports like MAN, STN, EDI, LTN, BHX have already paid their worth, so why shouldn't they pay tax? People at EDI and MAN might not be happy at NCL and LBA paying different tax bands, but while it may be a disadvantage (very small one) they already have a lot to offer AND already have a comprehensive network! Very very different to devolved APD to EDI, as they have more to offer to begin with, so would have a double advantage if they devolved their own APD.
The government would still get a good sum of tax from throughout the UK and being honest, the domestic passengers that BA could stand to lose to CDG, AMS, DXB etc. might stand in their favour. Funnel more through DUB and MAD, free LHR slots and it'll all balance out.
I'm not sure it needs to be as complicated as this - simply charging full APD for London airports, and discounts for the regions would be enough. The London market can take it, but the regions are a lot more price sensitive. Providing discount to the regions will also help reduce the pressure on LHR by encouraging more direct flights to the region.
This is nonsense, APD needs to go. Apparently 91,000 jobs could be created and £4.2 billion added to the economy if APD was scrapped. Neighbouring countries have done it, it's time to join them.
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But I'd like to think that they would use IAG for it's intended purpose...
And what is the intended purpose of IAG?
To maximise returns on shareholders' investments, perhaps?