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Passengers to pay as landing fees rise
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 24/11/2007
Fewer routes and higher fares are predicted after CAA proposes extra
charges for Heathrow. Phil Davies reports.
Passengers using Heathrow face the prospect of fewer domestic routes
and higher fares, even though the Government has given the green light
for a third runway at the airport.
A plane touches down at Heathrow, Passengers to pay as landing fees
rise
The Civil Aviation Authority have proposed an increase in landing fees
at Heathrow Airport
Airlines said this week that an increase in landing charges proposed
by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) at Heathrow and Gatwick will do
little to improve the poor levels of service at the airports. It is
expected that the costs will be passed on to passengers in the form of
higher ticket prices.
The planned landing fee increases, which are subject to further
consultation, would see charges to airlines rise from next April by
almost 16 per cent to =A311.97 per passenger at Heathrow and by 8.2 per
cent to =A36.07 per passenger at Gatwick.
The CAA said the new charges would allow BAA "to raise the standard of
service provided by Heathrow and Gatwick to passengers and airlines".
The authority will make its final decision on pricing at the airports
in March.
The Air Transport Users Council, a passenger watchdog, estimated that
fares would rise by =A31-=A32 per person as a result of the proposed
increases.
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In a year when BAA recorded a =A3597 million pre-tax profit, despite
unprecedented problems with lost bags and delays, few passengers are
likely to welcome the extra charges.
Bmi, the second largest airline using Heathrow, said extra charges
could undermine the viability of domestic routes into the London hub.
A separate CAA report found that an increasing number of British
travellers are avoiding London and flying all the way to their final
destinations direct from local airports, or are using airports outside
Britain, such as Amsterdam Schiphol or Paris Charles De Gaulle, to
connect to long-haul flights. More than 100 million passengers used
regional airports last year - nearly three times the number in 1990.
Willie Walsh, the chief executive of British Airways, said that a
third runway at Heathrow was needed to prevent a further reduction in
the number of destinations served by the airport. The number of
destinations has fallen from 227 in 1990 to 180 today, as airlines
concentrate on the most profitable routes. Mr Walsh also said that
service at the airport could be improved without the price rise
proposed by the CAA.
Heathrow has again come under fire for excessive queues and record
levels of lost luggage in a new government report. The Transport
Secretary, Ruth Kelly, this week published a 36-page dossier on
improving the passenger experience at Heathrow. It said: "It is not
simply the flight that matters. It's the journey to the airport, the
time spent in the queue at check-in, security or immigration, and any
delays spent on the aircraft waiting for a slot to take off.
"If you travel from London to Frankfurt, for instance, you spend about
90 minutes in the air, yet the whole journey from one city centre to
another takes about five hours." The report says that lack of runway
capacity is the root cause of flight delays. With the existing two
runways operating at 99 per cent capacity, even minor problems are
causing significant disruption.
Last week, Telegraph Travel reported that BAA aims to get 95 per cent
of passengers through security in five minutes in 2008. |