The UK's airline industry wants a year-long break from the government imposed air passenger duty tax or the consequences could be dire, warns industry campaigning body, Airlines UK.
The trade body says without the emergency tax break, UK airports will lose around 600 routes initially and in 12 months’ time, around 80% of the lost routes will be in the UK regions.
Yet, with a 12-month waiver, it could save 45% of the air routes out of the UK that would otherwise be lost due to the impacts of the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, a new report has found. In addition, the support could potentially save 8,000 jobs and contribute an additional £7 billion in GVA.
The study carried out by York Aviation and commissioned by Airlines UK, the industry association for UK-registered airlines, shows:
With an emergency 12-month Air Passenger Duty waiver in place, the situation improves with the number of routes that would immediately return at around 35. This grows steadily as the market recovers, with an APD waiver supporting an additional 56 routes by July next year. In other words, by July 2021 it would have saved around 45% of routes that would otherwise be lost;
The APD waiver would boost passenger demand by around 12% over the next 12 months. This equates to around 21 million passengers over the 12 months against a baseline of 170 million passengers.
An APD waiver could potentially save 8,000 jobs over the next 12 months and enable the sector to support an additional £7 billion in GVA. This GVA saving is around 3.3 times greater than the expected revenue from APD over the next 12 months.
Read the
full report here.