Airport drop off and pick up fees rant
By Darren Cronian on Saturday, December 11th, 2010

It’s not often that I’ll pick up the gauntlet and force an issue, but after a busy few months back and forth from Heathrow’s Terminal 5 airport collecting friends and family I have a rather large bone to pick: There is currently no option for making a quick pick-up without incurring a cost.

Airport drop off and pick up fees rant

How about 15 minutes free parking

Why can’t we have a 10-15 minute grace period so that drivers can make their pick-up without being subject to parking charges? It’s not uncommon to see a line of taxis stationed at the entrance to the Terminal 5 short-haul car park awaiting a phone call to avoid lingering inside the car park.

Short-stay car parks are for pick-ups

Airport signs for passenger pick-up lead into the short-stay car park where the minimum fee for a visit is £2.50 (for 0-30 minutes). My quickest pick-up took 4-5 minutes, no parking involved.

Terminal forecourts are for drop-offs only

It seems an entire category of visitor to the airport has not been catered for. The response received from @HeathrowAirport on Twitter in regard to the lack of pick-up facilities was “Hi, our terminal forecourts have always been for dropoffs only. This is to keep them clear for departing passengers.” This makes sense and I was grateful of a response, but it didn’t really address my complaint.

Fines are in force for misuse of forecourts

There is little to stop drivers from collecting passengers on the forecourt other than an abundance of signs explaining that it is a drop-off only area, and that fines are in force. Ordinarily out of principal this would not stop me but I know from numerous sources who work at the airport that the forecourt is monitored by cameras, and that these fines have been dropping through people’s letterboxes pretty regularly.

Although airport signs point to a passenger pick-up point the facility does not really exist, it is simply a short-stay car park. Visitors have no choice but to pay to collect a passenger or risk a fine by using the forecourt. Has this bothered you when meeting friends or family? How do you think the system can be improved?

This rant was sent in from Stephen Chapman of Make Travel Fair.


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10 responses to “Airport drop off and pick up fees rant”

Paul Dawson | 11 December, 2010 at 11:45 am

I live in an awkward place for Heathrow. No tube or train, but close enough that the black cabbies get annoyed that they have to come here and can’t get back in the front of the rank.

So,.. I always use private hire taxis. For years they were able to drop me and pick me up in the departures area, never having to stop for longer than the time it took me to get in.

Suddenly, one day a couple of months ago this stopped. The private hire companies had been warned by Heathrow that they would be fined if they did this again. Suddenly, I had 25 minutes added to my journey home, and another £2.50 on the fare (to pay for the car park) and a 5-10 minute walk after an arduous flight. Not only this, but all the private hire vehicles in the car park were jamming it up for normal family cars – making it both hard for them to park and hard for them to leave.

The thing that annoyed me was that Heathrow suddenly degraded the passenger experience massively without telling any customers. They let the private hire companies take the fall by suggesting they had always been breaking the rules.

There are plenty of alternatives to this – they could charge a nominal annual fee to private hire companies, who could then use the very under-used valet parking areas for pick-ups… and I’m sure there are many others.

In my view Heathrow really need to justify this, or change it. The worst thing they can do is be silent on it, or fob us off with “that’s the way it is” – which is what they have done to date when I pushed them on Twitter. let’s all hit them up on @heathrowairport and ask them to justify it.

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Paul Dawson | 11 December, 2010 at 11:47 am

Sorry – should add – another suggestion is to make a lane in the short stay car parks that can be used for pick-up. The ticket you get at the barrier only becomes chargeable if you are in the car park for longer than say 10 minutes. I’m sure it always used to work this way…

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Stephen Chapman | 11 December, 2010 at 12:18 pm

Thanks for adding your thoughts and experiences Paul. Interesting insight. I think you’ve made some great suggestions. Glad to hear you’ve also been in contact with @heathrowairport on Twitter – more of us need to make some public noise about this if we’re to have any hope of seeing a change.

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Gill | 11 December, 2010 at 5:34 pm

I wonder if this is a way of controlling the melee of cars which “hang around” outside airports, waiting for people to arrive? Since the raised security levels, I think that general hanging around at airports has been discouraged generally, wouldn’t you say?
The other possiblity is a little gentle persuasion for us all to make better use of public transport. Not much help if that is a long and tricky journey (like I would have, for example).
On the whole I agree that a 15 min waiting zone is a good idea and Paul’s idea of a ticket becoming payable only if you overstay your welcome is a good one. Mind you, there will always be those who overstretch the system and clog it all up for the rest of us!

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Darren Cronian | 11 December, 2010 at 5:53 pm

Good comments by all.

I think is an issue at all UK airports. Many airports have introduced fees to increase revenue, just like some have started to charge you for luggage trolleys. I agree that a 10 minute waiting zone would be good enough to pick up and drop off family and friends.

I don’t think the airports will stop charging because it’s another revenue source.

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Stephen Chapman | 11 December, 2010 at 6:54 pm

That 10-15 minute free buffer zone in car parks is all I’d like to see implemented. By offering no quick, free option, the airports are just extorting money from us. It’s like being sent an email, and then being charged to read it.

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Faizah | 12 December, 2010 at 1:40 pm

I think that it’s absolutely ridiculous; 10-15 minutes is sufficient enough to drop off/pick up somebody. If they start charging, it could make things quite hard, especially in any emergency.

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ChrisB | 12 December, 2010 at 5:25 pm

Luton is a miserable experience – it now charges £1 to drop off and also charges for using a trolley; and they have re-planned traffic so there’s a great hold-up at the terminal, as departing cars need to cross incoming traffic.
Gatwick’s new owners also charge for pick-ups, but at least they do offer a £1 for 15 mins tariff for those who are quick.
All in all, more miserable “taxes” on flying.
Darren, can you name and shame the Heathrow terminals where pick-ups from the drop-off area have actually resulted in people being sent fines?

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Nick | 13 December, 2010 at 10:19 am

Darren

Your right a lot of airports now charge for pick-up (some for drop-off). But not all, regional airports like my local airport give you 15 / 20 or 30 minutes free parking for this.

But airports are a business and this is a way of making money. I think personally it is a rip off and you will not get the airport to change. However an twitter @Heathrowairport with a #heathrow message from a lot of people may work. Bad publicity is not wanted by any business (except ryanair).

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Neil | 13 December, 2010 at 3:25 pm

You’d think it wouldn’t be too much to ask, but it’s easy money for the airports at the end of the day – hence it’ll continue as long as they can get away with it.

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