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Heathrow to increase passenger charge fee (not for 2025, don't panic yet...)

Posted by (NW England) on

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gdj2epe04o

the report is very much a game of numbers but what is clear is that Heathrow is expensive and will get worse in the next few years. And the passengers will pay. And whilst Virgin are being very vocal they aren't suggesting that they will divert flights, because the passengers want Heathrow! Well they think they want Heathrow, mainly because it's the place the experts in guidebooks and websites tell them.

But maybe visitors might lke to check whether Heathrow really is the closest airport to where they want to be, and if not, can they reach the closest reasonably easy from where they live. So if you do eventualy have to pay Heathrow rates you will at least be sure that there wasn't a better option

Posted by
7275 posts

When I was poking around looking for flights to England for my upcoming trip. I noticed that Edinbourgh was much cheaper to get to than Heathrow. Both Heathrow and Edinbourgh are a two hour train ride to York.

Posted by
843 posts

Well London Kings Cross and Edinburgh (without the o !!) stations are the same time to York, but if you add in the airport transfers, Edinburgh is simpler and faster, so you would win with that as well. https://airlink100.co.uk/ the terminus Waverley Bridge is an entrance to the main railway station. The tram is interesting but not as convenient for the station. The airport is also much simpler for getting through.

The Lake District has direct trains from Edinburgh every hour - and also from Manchester Airport (not the city centre!)

How many wanting to go to Oxford know that there is a direct train every hour from Birmingham International airport (not the city centre!) which takes one hour?

and so on.

Posted by
9715 posts

Panic isn’t in my travel vocabulary. VA is my preferred airline for trips to London.

Blessed and grateful to be able to afford to travel.

This news isn’t going to deter me from flying to LHR from LAX on a direct flight. Just isn’t.

Posted by
6174 posts

Heathrow wants to set passenger charges at an average of £33.26 between 2027-2031, compared with what it claims is an average of £28.46 between 2022-2026, although this figure is rejected by airlines.

I don’t think a 5 GBP increase is anything to panic about.

I still typically find Heathrow to be one of the least expensive European airports to fly to from the U.S. because there is a lot of competition among the airlines.

Posted by
843 posts

the airlines dispute Heathrows current average and claim the increase will therefore be much more than £5. I bet they regret no longer showing a breakdown of fees on the ticket like they used to, it might have proved their argument...

Posted by
7275 posts

Maybe Heathrow is less expensive for other airports, not for us. From Minneapolis, I found the flights to London to be very expensive relative to flights to Paris, Zurich, Amsterdam and Rome, where we tend to fly to for our travels. Hence, why we were looking at flying into Edinburg (thank you, Steve!). When I looked at the airfare breakdown of taxes and fees, Heathrow's were definitely more than the other destinations I was looking at.

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