Originally Posted by
skipness1E
Mad. We recently had a Govt Review which explained clearly how a hub works. If you want a direct flight to CHS on point to point, you need some feed in addtion to your p2p. LHR had London’s very strong p2p as well as legacy connectivity which makes it a decent hub and supports a load of frequencies that would otherwise not be viable even with London’s very strong market. Splitting that, as was tried by BA over LHR/LGW was a complete failure. And a hub at MAN just doesn’t pass muster. APD is just another tax to raise money, it’s got almost nothing to do with managing demand, it’s just more desperately needed revenue without actually raising income tax.
Oh, I'm not arguing for a de-hubbing of Heathrow. It's more that, in some senses, not charging APD is effectively a subsidy towards BA's connecting passenger business. There's a subtle balancing act between freeing up seats and slots for use on "thick routes" to promote competition (e.g. letting JetBlue in to compete on NYC, BOS, etc) and facilitating "thin routes" (e.g. CHS) by removing the APD. It depends what you want to prioritise in a small way - Norwegian driving down prices on NYC or nonstop access to obscure American cities.
Of course, if the APD has no effect on this HMRC may as well take the money!