Comment by michaelt
11 hours ago
Airport prices in the UK for recreational travel work like so:
Flight from London to Barcelona: £16
Bottle of water past security: £5
Train to airport: £26
Taxi enters drop-off area for 30 seconds: £7
A person who wants to get the advertised flight at the advertised price has to be very careful.
> Taxi enters drop-off area for 30 seconds: £7
To be fair, I entirely understand the absolute necessity for this.
The reason for its introduction is before hand the PHVs (Uber etc.) of this world would, instead of using the car parks, go up to the drop-off area and wait there.
Because there was no charge and no penalty, what they would do is drop off a passenger and then sit there waiting for their next job to ping on their screen.
This became a particular problem at Heathrow T5 where the drop off area is relatively tiny.
The result would be that at busy hours, private individuals attempting to drop off their friends and family would be unable to find space and end-up double-parking and causing safety hazards.
For a while they tried to use airport Police to enforce it, but the volume of PHVs was just far too great. Hence the cameras, charges and penalties were introduced.
It should also be noted that at Heathrow, if you do not want to pay the £7, you can instead drop people off for free at the Long Term Car park and they can get the shuttle bus back to the terminal.
Rather than charge everyone £7 or more for a drop off, wouldn't it make more sense to charge the people abusing it an absurd amount? I'd much rather see a £25 fee after 90 seconds and an additional £125 fee after 5 minutes than £7 for 30 seconds.
It seems less about making things more efficient and more about just squeezing a little bit out of money out of everyone.
On the other hand, one can also question if the £16 cost for the flight makes any sense. A more correct price would be £500. It's about time that the airlines pay the same taxes for fuel as everyone else.
What is the correct cost for a flight leaving in 3 hours with an empty seat? What is the correct cost for a scheduled flight leaving in 2 months with no seats sold yet?
Tickets aren't the same price for everyone, and planes fill to variable levels. Plus there are addons like luggage fees and beverages that have a huge markup. What is the best way to solve for that?
Besides, it averages something like 53L of fuel/passenger to make that trip. Hardly necessitating £500.
I agree. A mandated minimal price per km.
Tangential, but given the myriad externalities of air transport, such low fares for flying are deeply unethical and a perverse incentive that we are going to need to address one day.
Take an empty, open water bottle through security and then fill it up at the free water fountains!
There is often no free water.
I've been all over the USA, continental Europe, and Japan, and there have always been water fountains. Granted, I've never been to one of the "don't drink the tap water" countries.
Correct, I pay for it for you, every April 15th.
Which airports?
Price of water from water fountain (to be found on basically any western airport and most non-western I've ever been to) - 0.
I get your approach, but say where we live (Switzerland) if you have something not tightly around your body like a fleece jacket, you have to take it off and put it through scanner, this is default. Sometimes they still ask me to go down to t-shirt even if its obvious I don't have anything in pockets.
Not worth the hassle for something that is mostly free and probably healthier compared to plastic bottles stored god knows where and how long. I'd imagine if they catch you, you are going for more detailed inspection since its obvious you didn't forget 1kg bottle in clothing you wear by accident.
Even in your own car dropping off your friends or family at a UK airport (at least the London ones) requires paying a £6 fee now. Just to get to the dropoff area, even for 30 seconds as you say.
But hey, at least the luggage carts are free…
In Edinburgh the (small, we often need 2) luggage carts are now £2.
At Edinburgh airport, you can park at the Park and Ride nearby but it costs a tenner to get from there to the airport - a distance you could walk in about 20 minutes.
Right, but what do you think the alternative is? There is limited space close to the entrance of the terminal, it has to be rationed somehow. Also what happens in practice is people take advantage. A trust-based 30s wouldn't work. Even with the current fees you can hang around Heathrow drop off and see the police having to move people along, check unatended cars, etc.
There's limited space everywhere. It is rationed by people not wanting to be there. There's limited space at the baggage claim but nobody is charging you to be at the baggage claim.
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The alternative is not charging. JFK somehow manages. Yes there's traffic, but it keeps slowly moving.
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Yeah it’s got out and out criminal at this point. Not sure why we should accept a £6.40 charge to drop someone or collect someone from an airport when that’s the actual function and necessity of using an airport. I got charged £100 at COUNCIL OWNED Manchester airport for picking up a friend who accidentally had put themselves in the drop off zone rather than the collect zone. Just completely vile and disgusting corporatism at every single level.
Are you saying they fined you for picking someone up in the drop off area? If so that's pretty wild. It's all just traffic at the end of the day.
Yes. They have paid sneaks standing around and the second you do something like that they radio to the people who control the barriers so you can’t get out without paying it. Just completely f*cked state of affairs.
https://www.manchesterairport.co.uk/terms-and-conditions/dro...
“ 1.3 Breach of these terms and conditions may result in Parking Charges up to £100. An additional fee of up to £70 may be applied for the costs of debt recovery.
9.1 Drop-off only: The Drop Off Zone may only be used to drop-off passengers and not for pick-up. There are separate designated areas for the pick-up of passengers. Use of the Drop Off Zone for any other purpose will result in the issuance of a Parking Charge.
I do that all the time in certain airports when the drop off is essentially empty with 0 line but pickup is a half mile row of cars.
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