 LIVERPOOL airport bosses are calling for the Government to scrap air tax after Ryanair axed flight routes and jobs yesterday. The low-cost airline has cancelled 10 routes from Liverpool John Lennon Airport (JLA) including Budapest, Valencia and four in Poland. The announcement means the loss of 50 jobs among pilots, cabin crew and engineers from the region while one less plane will be based at Liverpool. Further cuts in Ryanair’s Liverpool winter schedule are expected. Last night, JLA managing director Neil Pakey called on the UK Government to scrap airport passenger duty (APD). He said: “Our loss today is Italy, Germany and Spain’s gain. “Jobs in the city region will now go there, as the tax is not levied on these countries. The Government should take another look at this.” Ryanair have echoed his plea claiming its impact on Liverpool had been “devastating”. It was now a higher cost destination and uncompetitive against other European cities, said the airline. Business continued to grow at overseas airports where governments did not impose such “idiotic” taxes. Ryanair has predicted it will see an 8% fall in its JLA traffic from 2.7m in 2008 to 2.5m a year in 2009/10. Airline spokesman Michael Cawley said: “The decision by the UK Government to continue to impose high charges and increase them over the next two years is completely unacceptable given the current economic climate. “Ryanair has repeatedly called for this tax to be scrapped by highlighting that such travel taxes have failed in both the UK and Dutch markets, where they immediately resulted in traffic declines and sadly these declines look set to continue. “This Government must realise you can only promote tourism by welcoming visitors, not taxing them. These cuts can and will be reversed if the Government’s greedy APD is scrapped – only then can we grow passenger traffic at Liverpool and throughout the UK.” | 
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