Isle of Man Government Conference

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.