A report on the open skies policy should be presented to the Council of Ministers within the month, according to the Minister for Enterprise.

The open skies policy means the island has a free market in air services and there is no obligation for any airline to maintain a minimum service.

It could mean greater competition for the island’s routes, resulting in cheaper fares for residents, but it could also present the risk that airlines can just decide to drop the island off their schedule.

Enterprise Minister Alex Allinson said the policy was under review in a House of Keys sitting on Tuesday.

He added: ’With regards to the island’s air links, the department is currently leading a strategic review of air services.

objective

’The objective of this review is to consider the historical performance of air routes, assess the current open skies policy and present a range of alternative policy options for consideration that would support the securing of air links which would meet the needs of the island, including the visitor economy.’

This was said after Treasury Minister David Ashford confirmed the United Kingdom’s drop in air passenger duty for domestic flights won’t extend to the island. It follows the move to introduce a new reduced band as part of Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak’s recent budget. The UK is to cut it down to £6.50 from the current rate of £13 for a one-way domestic flight which will come into effect from April 2023.

Mr Ashford said that if the government chose to make the change here, noting this would only be one-way as the UK government’s air passenger duty would remain at £13, it would cost the taxpayer in the region of £2 million, based on pre-pandemic passenger figures, and the island would be ’out of sync’ with other Crown Dependencies.

He also said people shouldn’t assume it would be likely to affect ticket prices.

’If I was a betting man, I would say that it would be absorbed into the airline’s operating costs, rather than passed on to the consumer,’ he added.

Dr Allinson said that while a reduction of 50% in air passenger duty may sound beneficial, it would only be a reduction to £6.50 and it would be ’unlikely’ to make a material difference to passengers’ decisions.

He added that Visit Isle of Man, the government’s tourism body, still has a strong strategy to ’rebuild on the reduction of numbers caused by the coronavirus pandemic and the shutdown of the aviation industry and travel industry’ and also grow the visitor economy and meet the aspiration of having 500,000 visitors coming to the island by 2032’.