Flights grounded

Budget airline Norwegian is to axe the last of its three US routes from Edinburgh launched last year. The carrier is also scrapping two of its five other routes from the capital, to Barcelona and Tenerife.

Stewart 60 miles from Manhattan, JFK 16. Good effort by Norwegian, but too much like Ryanair and nowhere like as cheap. The Scottish Government, however, should reduce Air Passenger Duty (APD) as soon as possible. The additional revenue through footfall will swamp lost tax income.

Luxdon55 All airlines must pass on the APD surcharge. Norwegian fares are no lower than the competitors, like United who have higher staff costs and higher landing fees at Newark. Blaming the cancellation on APD is just an excuse. Edinburgh Airport claiming that the decision is “entirely due to APD” is just colluding in the deception.

Sandy Stewart

Used this route regularly to visit Scotland. Was affordable and convenient. Hope this can be reversed.

Karen Hamilton

A great pity about Norwegian cutting its flights from Edinburgh. It’s a very good budget airline – far better, in my opinion, than the likes of Ryanair. One point of information, however. The article says it flies to Malaga from Edinburgh. It used to fly direct to Malaga but changed this some time ago.

Mikieboy51

The government has not cut the tax due to two reasons: no other party at Holyrood will support them for political reasons and as a minority party they cannot pass it alone, and there are EU regulations which would mean imposing the tax universally unlike at present where Inverness is exempt (this would mean large increases in flight costs to the islands).