This month, the cost of dropping someone off at a British airport, the so-called “kiss-and-fly” tax, went up — of course it went up, not down — at most from £5 ($6.70) to £7 ($9.38).
If one stops for a minute, helps carry luggage out of the car and say goodbye, however quickly, then the fee applies and needs to be paid by midnight of the day following.
Airport management no doubt spouts some guff about how this reduces traffic, speeds up foot traffic around the airport and lowers pollution, and they add that there are park-and-ride buses that are free.
I would argue — and for most of my adult life I did not own a car — that most people might believe such a transport scheme is commendable but simply do not have sufficient time or might believe that there is not enough time to use such services and make their flights on time.
Such penny pinching — and it is that — sends a terrible message to customers and visitors, be they domestic or international.
In London, the Elizabeth Line, a subway route that goes directly east-west across the city, has in part equaled out the appalling cost of the Heathrow Express train service to Central London, which could cost an unguarded family of four (children 15 and younger travel free) £100 for 15 minutes of service.
That’s £400 an hour!
The Elizabeth line fare from the airport to Zone 1, the center, is pretty much 50% of that.
There are some discounted Heathrow Express tickets, but they need to be paid for 45 days or more before the train ride.
That is shameful.
To get the 16 minutes from Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport to the center of the Dutch city, the fare is €5.20 ($7).
The archaic mathematics and algorithms that calculate transport fares across much of the United Kingdom need a massive overhaul for the sake of value and simplicity, especially in this age of governments wanting carbon footprints and offsets to be measurable and lowered.
Governments have spoken about this, but nothing seems to get done.
The RAC, once the Royal Automobile Club, is one organization that has “railed” at the increased charges.
The car industry — of which it is part — might well see the benefit of talking to airport authorities and government to perhaps come up with a plan to compromise these charges or abolish them.
The U.K. is seeing such behavior everywhere.
I wrote recently of the new Silvertown Tunnel, for cars and other vehicles, in Central London, which opened this April and started with a charge. Not only that but it saw the neighboring Blackwall Tunnel impose the same charge despite being free for the past 128 years since it opened in 1897.
Speaking about the airport charges, Rod Dennis, the RAC’s senior policy officer, told the BBC that “drivers are a captive audience, and that’s why we think airports are so keen on these sorts of fees. But, honestly, £7 for a stop that could be no more than 10 minutes does seem a little steep.”
I’d be interested how they calculated the new fares, other than they most likely are annual addition above the rate of inflation.
At least on one airport website, that of London Gatwick, there is a note that says, “there is a maximum daily charge of £27 and a maximum length of stay of 30 minutes.”
Or on an hourly basis (I am not sure what happens if one stays for that amount of time?) that would be £54.
Poor show! All the wrong messages.
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