EasyJet is cutting its domestic flights, blaming Reeves’ air passenger duty (APD) hike for grounding demand. The airline’s finance boss, Kenton Jarvis, warned that routes to Scotland and Northern Ireland will be worst hit as fares climb by £2 per flight. Meanwhile, Ryanair is to cut flights by 10% from UK airports, thanks to Reeves’ “idiotic” tax rises…
Jarvis, soon to be EasyJet CEO, slammed the APD increase as more damaging than the Government’s £13 million National Insurance raid, calling it a heavy blow to domestic aviation and that “fundamentally, it’s exactly what they said they didn’t want to do, which is to tax the working person”. The turbulence for Reeves isn’t over…
Speaking to Sky News off the back of Rachel Reeves’ Air Passenger Duty hike, Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said:
“Labour is dependent on those Red Wall seats, and yet every move she makes poisons economic growth and damages the UK’s recovery… it’s the Chancellor who stumbles from policy misstep to policy misstep… I think her policy decisions are incredibly stupid.”