Airport boss calls for Government lobbying
21.06.10
Richard Gooding, the CEO at London City Airport, has called on the business travel community to lobby the new coalition Government. Speaking at the Business Travel Market last week, he said the aviation industry was under increased pressure from ‘scary’ changes to Air Passenger Duty (APD) and constraints on airport expansion.
The Government plans to scrap the current per passenger APD in favour of a per plane tax, which some airlines - typically budget and charter airlines that have a high load factory - will welcome whilst other full service airlines with lower passengers per plane will not. But Mr Gooding warned: ‘The scary bit is that the Government is set to increase the take from APD by 40%.’
On airport expansion he said that as Britain is an island nation, it relies more on air transport than any other European country, and that if transport links did not keep pace with the continent, the UK would lose out. ‘You could argue we [London City Airport] like the idea of Heathrow being constrained. In the short term that may be true, but we have to take a long term view. Travel will go to the continent and eventually the big institutions will follow.’
Mr Gooding said the industry needed to be more ‘robust’ in countering constraints on aviation.
‘This industry has the capability of lobbying about these things. So far we've been poor.'
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