SCOTLAND must be given the same freedom as Northern Ireland to set or abolish Air Passenger Duty, according to the think tank established by former SNP leader Gordon Wilson.
The Options for Scotland paper, written by former party candidate Iain Lawson, who is the Estonian consul, claims it is generally seen as a punitive tax which is hurting the struggling aviation industry and strangling economic growth at a time when it is most needed.
The tax was £5 a flight when it was introduced in 1994 but, by next April, some flights will attract a levy of £388. Mr Lawson said when the Stormont assembly used its power to set APD at zero in Northern Ireland, the result was a 14% increase in business travel to North America.
The paper says: "If we are all supposedly 'Better Together', why should Northern Ireland be singled out for preferential treatment? If it was to compete with Dublin and Shannon, why was Scotland left high and dry with no ability to compete fairly with Ireland and other parts of Europe?
"Since it was introduced, this 'poll tax of the skies' has increased by a factor of nearly 19 for some flights."
Last year, a report from Scotland's three largest airports said APD could lead to a cut in passengers and the Scottish economy could lose £210m a year in tourism spend by 2016.
The paper adds:"The UK may question why so many Scots now fly via Amsterdam rather than London to connect with their flight to destinations not available from Scotland. It's called APD."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article