Ryanair<\/a> warns it could move aircraft elsewhere<\/p>\nO\u2019Leary said Ryanair is still expanding in the UK this year, but warned that could change if the additional tourism tax goes ahead.<\/p>\n
The airline is already moving capacity towards countries where it believes aviation taxes are more favourable, he said.<\/p>\n
Ryanair has not announced which UK airports or routes could be affected, and there is currently no indication that flights between Britain and Portugal are specifically being targeted.<\/p>\n
However, O\u2019Leary said the airline could start taking capacity out of the UK, rather than continuing to expand there.<\/p>\n
He pointed to countries including Sweden, Slovakia, Hungary, Albania and Italy as examples of markets where aviation taxes have been reduced or removed.<\/p>\n
Ryanair says that if the UK abolished APD, it would respond by adding 30 aircraft at British airports, opening 200 routes and creating 10,000 jobs. Those figures are the airline\u2019s own projections rather than government estimates. <\/p>\n
What passengers currently pay<\/p>\n
Air Passenger Duty is charged on passengers departing from UK airports, with the amount depending on the destination and class of travel.<\/p>\n
Since April, the reduced rate for a short-haul international flight has been \u00a315. Domestic passengers pay \u00a38, while economy passengers travelling further afield can pay \u00a3102 or \u00a3106 depending on the distance. <\/p>\n
Those charges are already scheduled to increase again from April 2027. Short-haul economy APD will rise from \u00a315 to \u00a315.49, while the domestic rate will increase from \u00a38 to \u00a38.26. <\/p>\n
The government says the increases are linked to inflation and are intended to ensure aviation continues to make a contribution to public finances.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Leary sees things differently, arguing that lower aviation taxes would encourage airlines to add flights and bring more visitors into the country.<\/p>\n
For now, Ryanair is still growing its UK operation.<\/p>\n
But with another potential tourism tax being discussed, the airline is making it clear that future aircraft and routes could just as easily go somewhere else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chief executive Michael O\u2019Leary says visitors are already being taxed when they fly from the UK through Air…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":783811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-783810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=783810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}