Ryanair say APD and BAA charges cost airports 4.5m passengers
24.06.09
Ryanair launched a campaign to try to get planned increases in air passenger duty (APD) - and ideally the tax itself - axed yesterday. The budget airline said that Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s £10 'tourist tax', combined with the BAA's 'high airport charges' have caused the loss of over 4.5 million passengers at the BAA UK airports in the first five months of this year.
Ryanair said if the UK traffic collapse continues for the full year the UK economy will lose over 10 million passengers, 10,000 airport jobs and over £2.5bn in tourism spend in 2009. It called on Mr Brown to scrap the £10 APD tax and speed up the sale of Gatwick and Stansted airports 'to prevent a further collapse in UK tourism and related jobs next winter'.
The airline also confirmed that it will freeze growth at its nine UK bases with immediate effect. CEO Michael O’Leary said: ‘Ryanair will grow by 15% this year to over 67 million passengers. However, the UK will not share in any of this growth in 2009.'
‘The government’s £10 tourist tax is making the UK an uncompetitive destination and they must scrap this tax now to prevent a further collapse of UK passenger, tourism and job numbers.'
He also called Abta ‘a bunch of witless, useless travel agents who wouldn’t know a campaign if it bit them on the arse’. Launching Ryanair's campaign to scrap APD, Mr O’Leary refused to join Abta’s scheme, claiming it favoured the wealthy.
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