TravelDream
Member
- Joined
- 7 Aug 2016
- Messages
- 675
Airport fees for passengers departing from Heathrow are set to rise way ahead of inflation, with the current £19.60 per person charge rising to £30 on New Year’s Day.
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has raised its cap on passenger fees by 53 per cent while it conducts a consultation on the rates that should apply in the five-year spell from summer 2022.To prevent fees rising way beyond any other airport and inflating the cost of flying, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) capped the amount Heathrow can charge.
But as a result of the Covid-19 crisis and government travel restrictions, the airport has slipped way down the European league.
According to figures issued on Tuesday morning by Eurocontrol, Heathrow was in fifth place behind Amsterdam, Istanbul, Frankfurt and Paris Charles de Gaulle for flights operated last week– having lost 42 per cent of 2019 traffic, more than any of its busier rivals.
By July 2021, Heathrow’s cumulative losses during the pandemic had grown to £2.9bn. The airport’s owners had hoped fees could more than double to help it recover financially.
Heathrow asked the CAA increase the cap on its charges per passenger to between £32 and £43 – representing a rise in the range of 63 to 119 per cent on current levels.
Heathrow passenger fees to surge by 53% from January
‘Heathrow is already the world’s most expensive hub airport’ – Luis Gallego, CEO of British Airways’ parent company, IAG
www.independent.co.uk
Hardly a great advert for 'global Britain' when fees increase this much at the end of the pandemic to satisfy Heathrow's foreign owners.
I expect a number of airlines to look closely at competing airports like Gatwick, Luton and Stansted.