Contents
SASIG 2013/14 Meeting Dates
Regional News
Industry News
Parliamentary News
Government News
House of Commons Written Questions
Media News
SASIG 2013/14 Meeting Dates
25 October 2013
7 March 2014
Meetings are held at 11am, Local Government House, Smith Square, SW1P 3HZ, with lunch provided afterwards, location map.
Regional News
7 July 2013 – The First Minister of Wales has confirmed he has met commercial operators with an interest in buying a stake Cardiff Airport. Carwyn Jones said a ‘medium to long term’ strategy has been discussed with potential investors. The Welsh Government bought the airport in March.
7 July 2013 – Heathrow Airport have applied to the London Borough of Hillingdon for planning permission for two, new taxiways at the western end of its northern runway. It has been suggested that this could lead to the end of the ‘Cranford Agreement’ if approved – an oral undertaking given in 1952 by the British Government to the residents of Cranford regarding the usage of the runways at Heathrow Airport to reduce the impact of aircraft noise on local residents.
8 July 2013 – Boeing Dreamliner starts operating from Manchester Airport.
11 July 2013 – Durham Tees Valley Airport has failed in a second bid to secure funding to support expansion plans. The airport was seeking £4.65m from the regional growth fund to build a new access road and develop a business park to the south of its runway.
11 July 2013 – Aer Lingus Regional, operated by Aer Arann, has announced details of a service which allows Birmingham-based passengers to fast track their journey to the US through Dublin Airport. Passengers flying with Aer Lingus from Birmingham can now connect through Dublin to complete pre-clearance and customs, ahead of their onward journey to the US.
Industry News
8 July 2013 – Since the economic downturn at least 13 European governments have given state aid to airlines.
10 July 2013 – Europe’s largest regional airline, flybe, recently announced the appointment (from 1 August) of a new CEO, Saad Hammad (a former Chief Operating Officer at easyJet), with Jim French, the current Chairman and CEO, becoming non-Executive Chairman. The airline has recently embarked on a ‘Fit to compete’ turnaround plan.
Parliamentary News
9 July 2013 – Lords Motion for Debate. The following motion was tabled on 9 July 2013 for balloted debate. Lord Foulkes of Cumnock to move that this House takes note of the significance of the aviation industry to the United Kingdom economy.
Government News
10 July 2013 – Department for Transport has published a report titled ‘Department for Transport statement of new regulation’.
12 July 2013 – In the first quarter of 2013, 78 per cent of scheduled flights were on-time, a decrease of four percentage points compared to the first quarter of 2012. All ten airports monitored saw falls in on-time performance and increases in average delay. Newcastle and Gatwick registered the biggest declines in on-time performance of 10 and seven percentage points, respectively. On-time performance for scheduled flights at London airports fell by six percentage points to 76 per cent and the average delay increased by three minutes to 14 minutes between the first quarter of 2012 and the same quarter in 2013. At the regional airports monitored in the first quarter of 2013, on-time performance fell by three percentage points to 81 per cent and average delay increased by two minutes to 12 minutes.
House of Commons Written Questions
Patel – Comparative Air Passenger Duty (Europe)
9 July 2013
Priti Patel (Conservative; Witham): To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what comparative assessment his Department has made of the amount of air passenger duty paid by (a) British companies, (b) French companies, (c) German companies, (d) companies in the Netherlands and (e) companies in the Republic of Ireland; (2) what assessment his Department has made of the recent report by PricewaterhouseCoopers, The economic impact of air passenger duty, published February 2013; and if he will make a statement; (3) if he will publish his Department’s assessment of the effects of current levels of air passenger duty on UK businesses’ use of air transport and their ability to export; (4) how many representations he has received from overseas residents regarding air passenger duty in 2012.
David Gauke, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury: Air passenger duty (APD) is paid by airlines rather than passengers, although airlines usually pass the cost of the tax on in ticket prices. For the purposes of administering the tax, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) does not require and does not collect information on the final purchasers of tickets, and so it is not possible to identify the amount of APD paid by companies resident in different countries. While HMRC does hold data on the amount of APD paid by airlines, it is not possible to provide breakdowns of this information by country due to taxpayer confidentiality. The Government believes that APD is a relatively efficient and non-regressive tax, and that abolishing it would have a small impact on GDP and cause a net loss of overall tax receipts. The Government has limited the rise in APD to inflation over the period from 2010-11 to 2013-14. Furthermore, Budget 2013 set out rates from April 9 July 2013 : Column 159W2014, which will also only rise in line with inflation, ensuring that the level of APD will remain constant in real terms. However, the Chancellor keeps all taxes under review and considers their effects in the round. Treasury Ministers and officials have meetings and receive representations from a wide variety of individuals and authorities as part of the process of policy development and delivery. Our records are not broken down to allow the number of communications specifically from overseas residents to be determined.
Media News
12 July 2013 – Journalist and Travel Correspondent Simon Calder considers the use of ‘frequent flyer miles’ (video report).
The Parliamentary information in this Bulletin is sourced from De Havilland Information Services plc.