Aer Lingus wants tax scrapped

AER LINGUS has called on the Government to remove the air travel tax due to the “serious damage” it is causing to the airline and the wider tourism sector.

In a letter to the Minister for Finance, Aer Lingus chairman Colm Barrington said the tax was compounding challenges posed by rising unemployment, falling consumer confidence and the impact of a weak sterling and dollar on its routes to Britain and America.

Mr Barrington said the tax “will have a significant bearing on our ability to operate a full schedule of flights” this winter as compared to last. The €10 air travel tax was introduced on March 30th and is being opposed by other airlines including Ryanair, which recently said it would ground four aircraft at Dublin airport over the summer with the loss of 200 jobs due to the new charge.

This is the third letter from Aer Lingus to the Minister opposing this tax and it pointed to the declining prognosis for the industry since it had issued the first.

Mr Barrington said the International Air Transport Association forecast last December that airlines would lose $2.5 billion this year but last week raised this estimate to $8.5 billion.

Mr Barrington said the country was losing much more from the tax than the Government was gaining. He pointed to the example of the Netherlands which had introduced a similar tax in July 2008 but later abolished it as the €300 million raised in taxes was outweighed by a €1.3 billion loss to the economy due to a fall in air travel.