Isle of Man Government Conference

  • last month
Public ask questions on the challenges facing air and sea travel to and from the Isle of Man
Transcript
00:00I'll please comment on the impact of APD airport passenger duty and in terms of commitment from
00:08budget airlines. Thank you. That's uh well Gary's an obvious place to start. We'll move along the
00:15line then. So from you Brian. So APD air passenger duty is the levy that the Isle of Man government
00:23places on departing passengers. Our conversations with EasyJet is that that is one of the key
00:29reasons why they have dropped Bristol and Belfast. Belfast in particular. Bristol for a seasonal
00:35route. So we can only go off on what they tell us but again that is a big impact. However APD
00:44does generate income for treasury so there is a cost to any form of tweaking with APD that would
00:51be a cost that treasury would have to make. You also have to keep the air traffic controllers.
00:55It probably is one of the few places that I've ever been where air traffic controllers are
01:00mocked publicly. We are trying to get these people to stay. It is very difficult. So again
01:06the air traffic controllers that we have turn up every day. They extend wherever they possibly can
01:12and to get mocked is quite difficult. They are likely to leave. We have some seen some leave to
01:18go to other airports where they are literally greeted with open arms. So again I think everybody
01:24has a part to play. We will play our part in terms of training them, in terms of getting them in,
01:29in terms of trying to expedite as quickly as we can. But I do ask the public to not put biscuits
01:35into their own baskets whilst it is amusing. It professionally hurts them. I think it also
01:42mocking them and calling them out on Facebook does not help. We sometimes drive these people away.
01:47We desperately need to keep them.

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