News: Ryanair restart London to Stockholm flights
Flights > News > # 1035 (20/10/2006)
Ryanair will re-launch flights from London Stansted to Stockholm Vasteras next spring, three months after suspending the route in protest over the former Swedish Government’s plans to introduce an environmental flight tax.
The Irish no-frills giant halted all new route development in Sweden due to its anger over proposals which it claimed would have done nothing for the environment, although it chose not to suspend flights from Stansted to Stockholm Skavsta or Luton to Vasteras.
The new Swedish leaders have scrapped the bill, and the Ryanair giant will offer cheap flights from Stansted to Vasteras, which is 60 miles northwest of the Swedish capital, from March 25.
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European leaders beware – slap a tax on cheap flights and you’ll face the wrath of Ryanair!
Earlier this year, Sweden fell out of favour with Ryanair in due to the incumbent government's plans to introduce an environmental levy of around £7 on all flights leaving the country. With a general election having passed and the old guard voted out of office, the incoming government have decided to scrap the tax. Suddenly Sweden is back in favour with Ryanair, and the London to Stockholm Vasteras route has been restored. Additionally, Ryanair have also launched new flights from Dublin to Stockholm.
The last few weeks have seen a slew of new reports calling for extra taxes on aviation in the UK, with the Conservatives outlining plans to move the focus of the taxation system away from earnings and onto consumption, especially where such consumption is tied to environmental damage. If Friends of the Earth got their way, then we would see a £15 tax on short-haul flights, although former Tory transport Minister Steven Norris went further last month by suggesting a figure of £20. If any government was to impose such a dramatic increase in air passenger duty, how many of Ryanair's myriad UK routes might be under threat?
Perhaps many people will be glad to see the back of Ryanair. In the airline's defence, and contrary to popular belief, Ryanair don’t just run ‘Immigrant Expresses’ from Eastern Europe, they bring in huge numbers of tourists and business travellers to compensate for the millions who head out of the UK for sunnier climes.
As it happens, Ryanair's flights between Sweden and the UK have some of the highest proportions of inbound visitors, so Sweden's tax reduction might well inadvertently benefit the UK Treasury!
Moving on from the economic to the environmental arguments, should politicians be worried that if they overtax aviation, they will see routes pulled en masse, on a far greater scale than the small number of flights Ryanair stopped operating to Sweden? As always, much of it will boil down to the political games which might be played at the time - perhaps Sweden got caught out for attention because the tax was to be implemented instantly, and because the amount was just enough to sting. Air passenger duty in the UK, at £5, is only a small amount lower than the proposed Swedish charge, but no frills airlines have grown accustomed to accepting this, especially as the charge was £10 when first introduced by Tory chancellor Kenneth Clarke in the mid-1990s.
The problem is not going to be so much about the principle of polluter pays per se, but about how such charges are implemented. The airlines, and the general public for the matter, also have the right to demand that any kind of environmental tax is spent directly on green causes and does not filter in Gordon Brown’s fiscal black hole.
