[MartynSinclair]

Drop off fees are only one part of the cost of getting the airport. yesterday I got stung for £7 to drop someone off at Stansted. I think we will soon see the first £10 drop fee (if it is not already in force).

I may live relatively close to Heathrow Alex, but my costs to get to all terminals has increased significantly. My regular car service put their prices up very significantly, especially to T4, where it went from £70 (pre pandemic) to £130 (2023). T5 is now £85 from £60 and when you consider the number of visits + drop off / car park, the costs do mount up. The net result for my car service, I currently no longer use them.

Car services like the airlines will not reduce their prices even when the cost of petrol & diesel have fallen over the last year.

So I have modified how I get to the airport.

I am a big fan of the Lizzy line, especially as it is free for me (after 9am in the morning) & will use that to get to and from Heathrow whenever possible. For early morning starts, I will use an uber, which is around 40% of the cost of my usual car service. Problem with Uber’s at Heathrow for the return is the drivers are held in car pens, sometimes up to 30 minutes away so their can be a wait.

As UK airports are looking for ways to increase revenue (as all businesses are) consumers / customers are also looking for ways to reduce costs. I just look for alternatives to get to the drop off / departure zones.

Next problem is Southampton for a back to back QM2 x’ing. That cost to S’hampton has now doubled from 3 years ago, £600 return from north London for the group of us travelling.

2 users thanked author for this post.

AMcWhirter, AndrewinHK

[SimonS1]

Agree with FDOS. Nightmare going to Gatwick recently, compounded by the fact that some check in staff were unable to get to work.

[cybertravller]

Out of curiosity, apart from the UK, have any travellers experienced these charges in other countries?

[ASK1945]

MartynSinclair wrote: “……………..I may live relatively close to Heathrow Alex, but my costs to get to all terminals has increased significantly. My regular car service put their prices up very significantly, especially to T4, where it went from £70 (pre pandemic) to £130 (2023). T5 is now £85 from £60 and when you consider the number of visits + drop off / car park, the costs do mount up. The net result for my car service, I currently no longer use them.”

This is exactly my experience, also – hardly surprising as apparently we live near each other in NW London. I have taken to using the “Meet and Greet” parking at T5 which, for shorter trips abroad, works out cheaper than my post-Covid car service and is more convenient on the return to LHR.

I can take the Thameslink direct to LGW, but I don’t rely on it during these workforce problem times, so I use the my car and M&G to there, also.

[LuganoPirate]

I find it quite disgusting that airports make a charge for a car dropping you off or collecting you. Public transport is fine if you just have hand luggage, but try negotiating the tube (and escalators) and bus with a carry on and 2 suitcases. I’ve never seen luggage trolleys at any London underground station, but please correct me if I’m wrong?

At Milan you have 6 minutes to enter and leave the drop off zone with no charge, and this seems very fair. Not sure why UK airports can’t do the same – other than wringing every last penny they can from the traveller?

3 users thanked author for this post.

Travelfoot, AMcWhirter, FDOS

[openfly]

Forget airport drop off and expensive parking at Gatwick….there’s a massive amount of safe street parking in Crawley, close to Gatwick. Gatwick is blessed with lots of frequent day and night buses at fixed £2. Route 3,4,5,10, 100, 200, 20 and others operated frequently by Metrobus.

[AMcWhirter]

cybertraveller – good question. Please refer to LuganoPirate’s post above.

Years ago when I was reporting on fees at other European airports it seemed, at that time, that UK was alone.

But I suspect things have changed since.

[lostantipod]

Capitalism is better at controlling businesses?
Only when there is healthy competition.
Not when demand is in elastic to price.
Seen the unswimmable state of UKs waterways and beaches lately? The rip off energy prices? The rip off train fares? That’s what monopolistic behaviour gives us. Shareholder and lender payments come before service.
The only thing that surprises me is that the airports aren’t gouging more.

I only live 30 miles from LHR , I’m all for encouraging public transport, but catching 3 trains lugging 2 suitcases and a carry-on and a fuming missus is not the start and end of a holiday I am looking forward to….on trains with no luggage space, thanks GWR (another monopoly). Nor is it even possible if I’m on a 630am business flight.

So the airports know they have us by the short and curries. Unfortunately, as my above comment shows, all our regulatory bodies have zero interest in protecting the consumer. Did you know that BA, for all their examples of skirting around passenger rights, has never been fined by the CAA? Yet it has by the US regulator.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Travelfoot, LuganoPirate

[wingcommander]

I have two recent experiences of drop off / pick up charges at EDI and GLA minimum £5. In my view these charges are excessive and (in Glasgow’s case) were introduced under a green / congestion relieving campaign. As predicted by many at the time, it was merely an opportunity to open a new revenue stream that would only increase over time. Prophetic.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Montysaurus

[Montysaurus]

Regarding wingcommander’s comment, I also get mad when our intelligence is insulted by claims of “improvement”, “listening to our customers“ or “for the environment“. The BA reduction in Avios earning ability also falls into this category.

1 user thanked author for this post.

wingcommander

[AndrewinHK]

The ‘green’ argument for drop-off fees is disingenuous unless they allow electric vehicles free drop-off. Whilst I understand the negative sentiment towards drop of charges, grousing over 5 pounds, when you would have paid far more to take public transport if you are a family. If you can afford a car, a holiday etc, you can afford 5 pounds, that’s the price of a Starbucks coffee these days. LHR’s fee of 5 GBP rate has been in force in 2021, since then UK inflation of say 20%, and the fee hasn’t yet been raised, the original article prefaced a piece about rising charges in the last year, if anything LHR has given you an inflation-adjusted discount.

[FDOS]

@Andrew in HK

Are you a shareholder in HAL? 🙂

You seem to be tone deaf to the sentiments of most on this thread.

Furthermore, no one has mentioned yet, local bus services used to be subsidised by HAL (as redress when they closed pedestrian tunnels to the central area), however these subsidies were withdrawn during Covid (and have not been reinstated).

So not only are they gouging for car drop offs, but also coining it in from not providing the subsidies for workers and others that were agreed when foot access was withdrawn.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Travelfoot

[AndrewinHK]

FDOS I try to formulate my own viewpoints, I don’t feel the need to go with the herd, a forum is to share viewpoints, and you, unfortunately, seem somewhat affronted by that. I am viewing things in an economic sense, the drop-off fee is in place, do people still use LHR, certainly they do, so the economics reflect an inelasticity of demand, from a management standpoint not charging the fee would be somewhat foolish, if you can generate revenue as a business, you take that opportunity. The moral and emotional side of the argument, I get it, it might annoy you and everyone here to pay the fee, but it exists, and many people pay it, and those that don’t have the choice and less convenient means of accessing the airport. HAL withdrawing subsidies from TFL bus services, given HAL pays taxes, and TFL is a government entity, why should a private enterprise subsidise a public service? Your argument there is with the Mayor of London not HAL.

[CathayLoyalist2]

Norwich Airport introduced their development fee in 2007 to help fund further development of the airport’s infrastructure and passenger facilities and to maintain and develop the airport’s route network. And how much work has started let alone been completed since then – zero as far as I can ascertain. So who has trousered what must been vast sums of money from the ADF? ..and not a peep from any regulatory body.

1 user thanked author for this post.

FDOS

[AMcWhirter]

Indeed. Norwich’s £10 development fee remains to this day.

However some other regional airports which had this separate fee later abandoned it.

I think of Blackpool (which later went bust anyway), Newquay and Teesside.

Airport Development Fee

1 user thanked author for this post.

FDOS

[Author]

Posts