Three Men in a Boat ... or Rather Plane

Now that's what I call interesting - three men who are normally at each others throats a suddenly singing from the same hymn sheet: Christoph Müller (Aer Lingus), Geoffrey O'Byrne-White (Cityjet) and Michael O'Leary (Ryanair) in rare unison asked the Irish Government to axe the €10 tourist tax, introduced on 1st April last (an auspicious date, but it was no joke).

The airline CEOs raised the following concerns:

• Since the €10 tourist tax was imposed, the monthly traffic at Dublin Airport has fallen by up to 15%.
• In 2009 Dublin Airport will lose some 3,000,000 passengers, as traffic falls from 24 million to around 21 million.

Doom and gloom indeed, especially since other European countries act markedly different: Both the Belgian and Dutch governments have recently scrapped passenger taxes to stimulate tourism and the Greek and Spanish governments have reduced airport charges.

Well, let's see what December's budget will bring ...