Ryanair says it could invest more than £200m extra into Liverpool city region and support thousands of more jobs if the Government scrapped Air Passenger Duty. Tony McDonough reports
Liverpool city region could secure more than £200m in extra investment from low cost airline Ryanair if the Government scrapped Air Passenger Duty (APD).
In December Ryanair announced it was basing a sixth aircraft at Liverpool John Lennon Airport (LJLA) and launching three new routes to Marrakesh in Morocco, the Albanian capital Tirana and Warsaw, the capital of Poland.
This takes its total number of routes out of Liverpool to 39 and would see the Irish carrier launch its biggest-ever summer programme out of Liverpool.
However, in an interview with LBN, Ryanair’s chief commercial officer Jason McGuinness, said the company’s investment at Liverpool could go even higher if the Government reduced or scrapped APD.
Due to rise again in spring 2026, APD adds around £15 to the price of a short-haul fare to European destinations from LJLA. Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said recently: “For a family of four, it becomes prohibitive.”
Each Ryanair aircraft at LJLA represents an investment of around £75m and directly supports 180 jobs, including flight crew and ground operations. Ryanair and LJLA claim around 2,000 jobs are supported in the wider visitor economy by each aircraft due to more visitors to the city
Jason told LBN that if it wasn’t for APD the number of aircraft based at Liverpool could rise to up to nine. Those extra three planes would represent an investment of £225m and support thousands more jobs.
He explained: “The UK is a very strong economy so there will be an element of growth. The issue is how much bigger would we be in Liverpool if APD wasn’t there?”
“So rather than having 60m passengers in the UK we could have 80m and we could bring in an additional 30 based aircraft on top of the 120 we have.
“And somewhere like Liverpool, rather than having six aircraft based here it could be eight or nine. Rather than 43 destinations it could be closer to 60.”
Ryanair is now Europe’s largest airline by passenger numbers, carrying more than 200m people a year. It wants to take that above 300m a year by 2035. The majority of airlines are smaller than they were in 2019. Ryanair is 50% bigger than it was in 2019.
It operates 640 aircraft across 95 bases in almost 40 countries. When it comes to choosing where the aircraft and routes go, cost of operations is critical. Its average cost per passenger including fuel is €35.
So APD adds a significant cost to air fares and this is why many argue that APD puts UK airports at a significant disadvantage. LJLA chief executive John Irving said in December: “We agree that APD should disappear because it would allow us to have an equal playing field.”
Jason McGuinness adds that it also puts northern UK airports at a disadvantage to airports in the south such as Heathrow or Gatwick.
He said: “So that is the key message of holding that turbo-charged growth back. And that is what Liverpool needs here. Everyone is very positive about the city and they understand that connectivity is key.
“But when you have a very very competitive European landscape for aviation then we will allocate our resources to where cost is lowest.
“Ryanair has been very vocal on the issue of APD and I think local government could get much more actively involved in making representations to national government.
READ MORE: Liverpool Airport injects £340m into city region economy
“We need a much more competitive landscape for the north and we need some sort of APD holiday for the northern airports to allow them to grow over the next few years and to enable them to compete with what is happening in Europe.
“Poland has no aviation tax, Sweden is abolishing aviation taxes, Hungary is abolishing aviation taxes. Even the Germans are reducing them. Unfortunately the UK is one of the few economies in Europe increasing taxes at a time when they should be doing the opposite.”