We are beginning to consider a trip to London and Edinburgh for late summer or autumn. I seem to recall reading previous posts about additional fees associated with arriving and/or departing from London airports. We can be flexible in arranging the itinerary and would like to take advantage of the best fares available. Were these higher fees connected to Heathrow or Gatwick, or both? Do they apply to arriving flights or departing flights, or both? Open jaw seems attractive; we could start and finish the trip wherever the best fare would take us. Any guidance would be appreciated. My efforts to search the site have been less than futile. Thank you.
Posted by
Green Bay
20980 posts
I checked using ITA-Matrix. For a 2 week trip from CMH to the UK in September. It is $43 cheaper to fly to London (Heathrow) and return from Glasgow (Intl airport for Scotland) than the other way around. Both are on US Air changing in Philadelphia. Not enough to worry about IMHO.
Posted by
Pensacola
9110 posts
You've gotten suckered in by a myth perpetuated by people who have limited experience and don't know what they're talking about.
London has high fees. Istanbul has low ones. So what?
Fees are one component of a ticket price. Equally important are seasonal passenger load, seasonal winds, fuel prices and projections, competition, carrier, arrival and departure times, and many, many other factors. Fees are not an add-on, they're included in the price of the ticket - - what you see is what you pay.
Equally important is convenience. London will generally have an earlier arrival time than Edinburgh, so you can fit more into that first day. Both airports have early departure times, with Turnhouse probably ahead by a hair.
For a given day/period either airport could be better.. Open jaw might be better, or it might not. - - you need to look at the cost and time of getting back to the starting point when you bounce it up against a round trip route (you can eat a late breakfast in Edinburgh, hop in the car, and have an early supper in London).
You need to work with some kind of matrix software - - ITA is fine, but I like the way the kayak filters work. Best prices are usually for mid-week movements.
While you're at it check Manchester as well if it's along or close to your track - - you can drive across the waist of England in a couple of hours. Similarly, Glasgow is an hour and a half drive from Turnhouse.
I think I made six or seven flights into the UK last year, generally not caring where I landed. I doubt that there was ever a hundred dollar difference between EDI, MAN, and LON for the same period. I'd also bet that neither of the three was consistently higher or lower.
Posted by
Windsor, Ontario, Canada
4085 posts
The high-fees-to-London reputation arises partly from travellers wanting to fly on points and put off by the extra charges on British Airways/American awards tickets. Those surcharges may or may not arise from London airport landing fees, or from fuel costs, or from whatever else the airlines themselves choose to dump into them. Passengers buying tickets rather than using points see only the bottom-line total fare, easily compared to other European gateways such as Paris or Amsterdam or Dublin.
Posted by
Oxford, United Kingdom
5433 posts
The fees charged by the airports do vary to some extent but the air passenger duty is the same throughout Great Britain, as are the government related fees. Heathrow tends to win out because of inter carrier competition.
Posted by
OP
Columbus, OH, USA
2055 posts
Thank you all for the informative responses. Somewhere along the line I got the idea that we were talking about differences of hundreds of dollars per ticket...perhaps it was related to awards tickets as mentioned. ( ? ) It doesn't take much to confuse me. Thanks again for the explanations and tips. I appreciate the help.