With all the chaos at airports in recent months – long queues for check in and security, delays at baggage reclaim, and thousands of cancelled flights – the last thing you need is to be landed with a massive charge just for dropping your loved ones off at the airport.
But this is the sad reality facing British holidaymakers at London airports. Stansted Airport has been revealed as the worst for drop-off fees, charging customers £7 for just 15 minutes, according to research from the RAC. The fee has shot up in recent years, as back in the summer of 2019, the charge was £4 for 10 minutes.
Unfortunately Stansted isn’t the only London airport with sky-high drop-off charges. Luton has increased its initial drop-off charge to £5 for 10 minutes (up from £4 for 13 minutes in 2019), while both Heathrow and Gatwick have introduced a drop-off fee of £5 – for 10 minutes at Gatwick and unspecified at Heathrow. In 2019, dropping off passengers at these two airports was free.
RAC head of roads policy Nicholas Lyes said it looked like the drop-off fees were “partially to make up for two years of lost revenue” after a “turbulent couple of years with the pandemic”.
He added: “Anyone dropping a loved one off at the terminal this summer will be stunned by some of these sky-high ‘kiss and drop’ charges. And for those using the UK’s two busiest airports, the luxury of free drop-offs outside the terminal building has been replaced by some pretty high fees. Minute for minute and pound for pound, some of these charges could almost be as high as the airfare itself.”
Lyes acknowledged that the charges were meant to encourage travellers to use public transport, but with strikes impacting the trains this summer many will be turning to friends or relatives to give them a lift. He advised customers to research fees before leaving and issued a warning that many airport forecourts have no stopping areas enforced by cameras, so you could be fined if you try to drop someone off without paying.