Number-crunching

Charles Buchanan (CEO, Manston Airport) from the night flights proposal:

Today some 110 staff are employed by the airport, with approximately a further 40 employed in servicing the operation of the airport. The airport currently generates £4.5m GVA (Gross Added Value) of which some £3.8m is within the Thanet economy ... development in line with the published Master Plan would (by 2018) support direct employment of over 2,000 jobs with a further 1,000 indirect and induced jobs in the wider economy. This level of employment would generate £65m GVA.

Sandra Matthews-Marsh (CEO, Visit Kent) responding to RGF funding

Tourism in East Kent contributes more than £835 million to the local economy and supports almost 18,000 jobs.

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Now consider the effect that the proposed night flight timetable will have on tourism in East Kent.

Wouldn't it be a huge boost for the local tourist industry if Manston could actually develop a viable passenger business?

The research says that it wouldn’t. The UK exports tourists rather than importing them - more Brits fly abroad for their holidays than foreigners come here.

The UK currently runs a “tourism deficit” of £19 billion a year and about £17 billion of that flies out of the UK every year with people flying abroad on holiday. This aviation tourism deficit is costing the UK about 900,000 jobs a year because people spend their money abroad instead of here.

On Infratil’s own numbers, this year twice as many local people flew from Manston to spend their money in Edinburgh than the number of people who flew from Scotland to spend their money here. For every inbound holidaymaker or business person to Thanet, we lose two to Edinburgh.

Manston is leaching money from the local economy.

Worse still, night flights over Thanet and Canterbury will cost us tourism-based jobs – that’s real jobs that exist today. People don’t choose go on holiday somewhere where they will have noisy 747s flying over their B&B all night. The Council’s independent experts have already said, a 747 taking off at night over Ramsgate will create a noise footprint that can be heard by 30,903 people. That wipes out Ramsgate as an attractive tourist destination.

Thanet has over 5,000 tourism jobs and tourism grew 10% here in the three years to 2009. Every 10% increase creates 500 more jobs – that’s five times as many jobs as Manston has created in the last eleven years. We should be protecting and growing our existing tourism business, not exporting tourist expenditure abroad and decimating the ability of Ramsgate to continue to develop as a successful tourist destination.

Manston calls for 'congestion charge' on bigger airports

Special pleading, spineless bleating

Bosses at Manston are calling on the government to implement a "congestion charge" at London's main airports because of the "devastating impact" of Air Passenger Duty (APD) on smaller airports. The proposal is part of Manston's submission to the government's consultation on APD, which it is estimated could cost the public, visitors and businesses an extra £1bn a year.

Manston is arguing that the tax will severely hit regional economies, and in particular the tourism sector, by hindering the growth of regional airports. As a result Manston is proposing that the most effective way to deliver the government's "Better not Bigger" initiative is to set APD levels at a lower level for uncongested regional airports with significant available capacity to help alleviate congestion and improve the passenger experience at the main London airports. Charles Buchanan, chief executive of Manston Airport, said:

"We believe the government should follow other European countries and scrap APD as the tax is making the UK less attractive to international visitors and also holding back the growth of regional airports. The government should provide economic incentives to encourage airlines to move out of the congested London airports, and importantly to make better use of those where capacity is available. If passengers and airlines want to fly out of airports which are congested then they should pay a premium for doing so, just as motorists pay a premium to drive in central London."

The top rate of APD is currently eight times the average of other countries in Europe and the Office for Budget Responsibility has forecast that APD will raise £17.5bn from 2010-11 to 2015-16 for the government. In countries such as Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark and Malta, APD has been scrapped due to its detrimental impact on tourism and wider economies in those countries, and it may be scrapped next year in Germany.

Manston has joined a partnership of other regional airports, including Birmingham, Bournemouth, Bristol, Durham Tees Valley, East Midlands, Humberside, Leeds Bradford, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Prestwick, and Robin Hood, and obtained legal advice on whether a new differential tax regime can be introduced. The UK aviation industry is also preparing itself for a "double tax whammy" with the impending introduction of the European Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), which, in addition to the APD regimes, means it is disadvantaged further against other European airports. Mr Buchanan said:

"With Air Passenger Duty in the UK now at a level far higher than anywhere else in the world, combined with record fuel prices, continuing weak economic conditions and the impending introduction of the EU ETS in 2012, it is making it difficult to sustain our existing air services and very challenging to attract new airlines and services to our airport. This is not only bad news for our airport and passengers, it is also bad news for jobs, inward investment, tourism and wealth creation in Kent. Under the right economic conditions Manston is uniquely positioned to provide air services for Kent and London once the already improving surface access infrastructure is in place."

The industry is arguing that regional airports across the UK, such as Manston, will be disproportionately affected by APD, at a time when they are best placed to assist the Government fulfill its commitment to constrain the growth of the congested London airports by not building additional runways at London Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted.

Regional airports argue that they do not have the luxury or benefit of having a large proportion of business travellers or wealthy passengers with a propensity to fly, that the main London airports such as Heathrow and Gatwick enjoy. Without decisive action, they say, the gap between the largest London airports and those in the regions will continue to increase.

kentonline 20th Jun 2011

Manston-Edinburgh flights start

Airline Flybe is to launch a service to Manchester from Manston from the autumn. The announcement comes on the day Kent International Airport launches its Edinburgh service. The Manchester schedule is to start from September 6.

Meanwhile, scheduled flights returned to Kent International Airport when Flybe's Manston-Edinburgh service took off for the first time last Thursday (20th May 2010).

The daily service to the Scottish capital launched five years after the high profile collapse of EUjet. It has been described as "a huge vote of confidence" in Thanet by tourism bosses at Visit Kent and has already created 20 new jobs at the airport.

Demand for the new route has been strong, despite the recent disruption to air travel caused by ash from the volcanic eruption in Iceland. A Scottish piper welcomed passengers boarding the first flight to Edinburgh.

The Manston route marks the second time Flybe has trialled flights from Kent, having flown passengers to Jersey last summer. The low cost airline says tickets for the new service, which went on sale in February, start at £24.99 one way, including taxes and charges.

Thanet Extra 27th May 2010