Airline CEO’s Budget Response: easyJet, IAG, Ryanair and Virgin Atlantic

"At a time when the Government talks about creating jobs and growth, its blinkered insistence on further increases in Air Passenger Duty achieves precisely the opposite.

"Youth unemployment is at record levels. Inbound tourism is a major employer of young people, but international visitors are being turned off the UK because of the exorbitant level of APD - which is by far the highest air travel tax in the world.

"In every other leading country, aviation is an expanding industry that underpins and facilitates growth in other parts of the economy. In the UK, rises of up to 360 per cent in APD in the last seven years are squeezing the life out of the economy. The CAA has confirmed that UK passenger numbers last year were the same as in 2004.

"Yet again, the Treasury is pressing ahead with further rises without any analysis of their effect on the wider economy. In the absence of such a study, we must assume that the Treasury knows it cannot justify this job-destroying tax in overall economic terms. APD must be scrapped."