Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. Given the propensity these days for our leaders to pave the way for new legislation, taxes etc by leaking to the media, there were no real surprises for the travel industry in the budget, writes John Barrington-Carver.
There were no concessions on Air Passenger Duty; there was nothing really new in the announcement that Theresa May will pronounce on the consultation on the UK aviation industry this summer and there was certainly no reduction in VAT for the UK tourism industry that they had asked for…
The Chancellor did say that they were going to suspend the Sunday Trading Laws during the Olympics to allow retailers to (hopefully) benefit from Olympic visitors’ presence in London. Given that reportedly no Olympic city has made money for the past five Olympics, retailers may be disappointed!
The media seem to have come up with a consensus that the PM might announce a U-Turn on the third Heathrow runway. The airlines, the unions (yes the unions!), MPs and UK business all want and support the third runway. However, unless the Government has leaked something in order to alter people’s expectations on the issue, I am not sure the PM is in a strong enough political position to make such a U-turn. Indeed, Justine Greening, Secretary of State for Transport, was elected to her Putney constituency on the promise that HTR3 would not be built under the Tory party. It sits, as I have reason to remember, right under the Heathrow flight path. With the Lib Dems also having a strong West London following, they are generally opposed to Heathrow thus a U-turn might be the issue that causes a break-up of the coalition. Something I imagine neither party wants to face at this time.
The Boris Island scheme is also mentioned again in the media as a possibility. Given the problems facing such an ambitious project, even if that turns out to be the eventual solution, “eventually” is the right term. By the time it’s open for business the lead gained by competitors for the accolade of being the main European hub airport and for access to cities in the growing BRICS market will have opened considerably, leaving UK “Limited” trailing. No apologies for the word limited because that what the UK will be – limited by airport capacity and lack of connectivity to those markets.
It’s a pretty odd boast by the Chancellor this week to claim that the UK is “open for business” when as an island, not only do we lack sufficient connectivity and air passenger capacity, but we also have the highest tax on flying in the world.
(Image: lbaviation)
