Tag: airports

Travel Habits Changing: The Impact of Rising Airport Fees

Over the Christmas and New Year break, when you have too much free time on your hands, I find myself doing things I wouldn’t normally do. Facebook and Instagram are platforms I use on a daily basis in my working life, but X — or Twitter in old money — I rarely use. However, when I have time, I find myself going down a rabbit hole of scrolling and commenting on some of the absolute rubbish that people write. I know I should just leave it alone, but sometimes I can’t help myself.

While we were away, we discovered that we needed to get Jude, our youngest, back for a game of football and training. If we had known beforehand, then maybe we wouldn’t have gone, but we had already booked four days away to see family and friends. Luckily, we were staying with some friends near Gatwick Airport, so we booked him an early-morning flight from there. I took the liberty of checking whether there was a charge to drop someone at the airport, as I knew that Luton — where we had flown from — charged £7.00. I couldn’t believe it when I read that they had put their charge up from £7 to £10.00!

So, of course, I decided to send a tweet to the airport:

How does @Gatwick_Airport substantiate a £10 drop-off charge when my @easyJet flight in January costs €19? #ripoffbritain

Within minutes, I got a reply from the airport:

Hi, while we will be increasing our drop-off charge from £7 to £10, passengers can be dropped off for free in our long-stay car parks, with a free shuttle bus to the terminal. Blue Badge holders remain exempt from the charge. The drop-off charge helps to limit the number of cars, reduce congestion, and fund a number of sustainable transport initiatives. It also plays a role in encouraging more passengers and staff to use public transport to reach the airport. Thanks, Grace

Then came the pile-on, with loads of comments mainly chastising the airport for what is basically a money grab. For a few hours, I actually went viral, which was fun. But the more serious side of me focused on the attitude of UK airports towards their passengers arriving at the airport.

London City: £13.00 (10 mins)

Heathrow: £7.00 (10 mins)

Manchester: £6.40 (10 mins)

Glasgow: £6.00 (10 mins)

Belfast: £3.00 (10 mins)

Cardiff: £3.00 (10 mins)

Compare that to some of the major airports around the world:

Palma: Free 

Paris (CDG, Orly): Free

Madrid (Barajas): Free

Frankfurt: Free

Barcelona: Free

New York JFK: Free

Dubai: Free

Seamus McCauley, Head of Public Affairs at Holiday Extras, commented:

“Airport drop-off fees have quietly become one of the fastest-rising costs of going on holiday. What used to be a quick goodbye can now cost up to £10 — and that’s before you factor in fines if it takes a little longer than anticipated.”

According to a new report, because of the financial squeeze in the UK, several long-standing travel habits are quietly being ditched this year. From packing techniques to what travellers get up to once they are inside airports, there are plenty of changes being made.

The biggest behaviour being dropped is holidaymakers no longer drinking and dining as much in airports. For some, an airport pint or a full English is the perfect fuel before a flight, but it appears this might not be as popular anymore. Rising prices and the overall cost of living mean more people are packing permitted snacks in their hand luggage to cut expenses and avoid buying food and drink at airports.

As for what travellers are putting in their bags, this has changed too. Passengers are now less likely to overpack, with many leaving the bad habit behind to avoid extra charges and baggage fees. Low-cost flights still exist, but by the time you’ve added on the extras, they aren’t anywhere near the price advertised. It’s mad that an airport drop-off, a bag that doesn’t fit the airline’s sizer, or even a caramel macchiato can actually cost more than a flight.

The travel industry needs to make sure it doesn’t price itself out of the market.

A Sneaky Airline Scam?

December the 6th is a holiday here in Spain and is known as Constitution Day. Celebrating the anniversary of the country’s current democratic constitution that was installed in 1978 after the fall of the Franco dictatorship. With the present problems in Spanish politics you might be forgiven to think, is there a possibility we’re going return to those dark days? Now I could carry on but politics really isn’t my bag and I thought it why bore you any more than I already do. 

As it’s a public holiday it was standard to find out that the flight prices for this week were horrendous, so I decided to go back to the UK last week for a couple of days to see my family. Why is it in the winter they make you walk miles to the gate at the airport when the rest of the gates that are closer are closed?  I wrote in October that the age of the No-Frills airline had ceased to be and they are doing their best to rip you for whatever they can get. More about that later! As I was only going for a couple of days I decided on the airlines ‘small bag policy’. I watched with great interest one staff member at Palma airport who was like a hawk stalking his prey trying to catch anybody he could with the wrong sized bag. I’m sure these people get off on causing misery to others and I’m sure they’re probably on a commission to catch as many people out as possible. That stand they have at the check-in desk has definitely got smaller, you’re lucky if you can get a Lidl paper bag in one of those things. But I was fine with my little Nike bag that I’d borrowed from my Son and had used on countless occasions throughout the Summer.

I had been offered a ticket to see the Arsenal in the Championship League that night but I was worried that if I landed at 17.00 which I was due to do, I’d be hard pushed to make it to the theatre of dreams by 20.00. Well if ‘London Stansted’ was actually in London and not in deepest Essex then maybe I could have done. As I left the plane I was greeted by a Siberian temperature of minus something. When you’ve been used to 20 degrees and above all year in Mallorca, this was quite a shock. Having picked up my hire car and safely negotiated the first roundabout which is always a nightmare when driving on the other side of the road, I was on my way up the M11 to Cambridgeshire. Or so I thought. All of a sudden we ground to a halt and we didn’t actually move again for a whole hour. I managed to listen to the whole Arsenal game on the radio before I reached my destination. Visiting and spending some time with my Mum aka the Duchess,  my Sister and friends is always great but never long enough. 

And so to my return. Now most airlines encourage you to download their apps so you can do everything on it but they are different when it comes to checking in. With some you can check-in when you want but with one particular one if you choose not to buy a seat they won’t let you check-in until 24 hours before. At that point i’d been asked a thousand times whether i’d prefer to pay for a seat which I politely declined. But this time something new occurred which hasn’t happened to me before and is obviously another one of their stealth taxes. A message came up on my phone which read ‘This is not a mobile boarding pass, you must collect your boarding pass at the airport check-in desk.’ Another message popped up which read, ‘Get your boarding pass now and avoid queueing at the airport by adding a seat’. Or otherwise known as, we know you’ve declined to pay for a seat a thousand times so we’re going to stitch you up and make you wait at the airport for a boarding pass. Which I dually did but what was the point and  what happened to us beginning to become a paperless society? This was a story that was picked up the mainstream media, the Sunday Mail had a story at the weekend and BBC news contacted me for a similar story they were running. 

It didn’t end there. That trusty Nike bag which I’d travelled with all summer with no problems all of a sudden wasn’t the right size for Mrs Jobsworth at the check-in desk. There are other names I could call her but she wasn’t having any of it. I asked why she hadn’t stopped the guy in front of me, ‘ oh he’s priority’ she snootily replied. It was pay £46 or start walking so I had no choice. That £46 was in fact more than I paid for my flight and I’m sure that when I scanned my boarding card a message came up on her computer saying. ‘Passenger refused to buy a seat even after we made him wait to get his boarding pass so feel free to stitch him up!’ 

In a week when Shane McGowan sadly passed away ‘Happy Christmas your arse’ was a perfect riposte when handed my receipt. 

It might be Christmas season but goodwill to all men isn’t a message that this airline is sending. Oh and just for the record the airline in question? It might not surprise you to know was Ryanair and because it’s winter time other airlines were not available. 

Take care everybody and enjoy your weekend!

Richie is the MD at Pirates, the islands number one night out featuring Adventure, Reloaded and Gringos.

Follow him on Twitter @DadTaxi1 & Instagram @dad.taxi or feel free to email him at rprior@globobalear.com