Airport Drop-off Charges

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Tuesday 13th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden (Yasmin Qureshi) on securing this important debate.

What should be a simple act of kindness—giving someone a lift to an airport, as we have all done—is increasingly being met with extortionate airport charges. This is neither fair nor reasonable, and it is why we believe the Government must now look seriously at regulating the fees. For constituents like mine in West Dorset, who live in a hugely rural area with limited public transport, where many villages do not even have a reliable local bus service, let alone a direct rail link to a major airport, it is increasingly painful. For my constituents to get to Exeter, Bristol or Bournemouth airports, let alone Heathrow or Gatwick, means driving, booking a costly taxi or, more often than not, asking a family member or neighbour to help.

If we want to drop someone off, we have to use the airport system and pay its charges. At Bristol, that now means £8.50 for 10 minutes, or £30 for an hour. Bournemouth airport promotes what it calls a passenger pick-up offer of up to 90 minutes to meet and greet friends, for the small fee of £6. For many people, that £6 will be spent on merely five minutes’ activity. For families who are already paying inflated air fares, baggage fees and taxes, it is just another hidden cost added to the journey.

The charges have risen rapidly across the country, far beyond inflation. Gatwick now charges £10 for just 10 minutes—double what it charged in 2021. What began in 2007 as a £1 security-driven charge at Birmingham airport has become a nationwide revenue stream. Airports often justify the increases by citing environmental goals or the need to encourage public transport use, but unless the charges are accompanied by serious, accessible and affordable public transport investment, they do not change behaviour; they simply extract more money from those who have no alternative.

The charges hit some groups particularly hard, including disabled passengers, people with reduced mobility, parents travelling with young children, and those from rural areas who are least able to use public transport and most dependent on car access. Although airports have duties under the Equality Act 2010 to make reasonable adjustments, statutory provisions for blue badge holders do not apply in private car parks, and many people fall through the cracks.

The Competition and Markets Authority and the Civil Aviation Authority previously concluded that there was insufficient evidence of harm in surface access charging. That assessment is now out of date. Since 2016, charges have risen sharply. Free drop-off zones have all but been removed, and on-site payment options have been closed in favour of online or phone systems that are confusing for most.

As people try to avoid the charges, police have reported increased dangerous behaviour, with cars stopping on motorway hard shoulders to pick up passengers. That is unsafe for drivers, passengers and emergency services and is a direct result of an unfair pricing system. It is also worth remembering, as has been highlighted, that these charges are not normal across Europe. Passengers at Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Amsterdam Schiphol, Frankfurt and Madrid do not pay to drop off loved ones. If it can be done there, it can be done here.

Airports argue that they face financial pressures, particularly from business rates, which were recalculated after the pandemic. We Liberal Democrats sympathise, and passing the bill directly to passengers through drop-off fees may be the easiest lever to pull, but it is not the fairest or most effective one. The Department for Transport has previously said that it has no plans to monitor or limit parking fees at airports, and I believe that position is no longer acceptable.

The Liberal Democrats have been clear that we want to reduce the environmental impact of flying, but it has to be done in a way that is fair and effective. We support investment in zero-carbon flights, reforming aviation taxation so that frequent flyers pay more, taxing private jets, improving rail alternatives and banning short domestic flights where fast rail options exist. What we do not support is offloading the cost of climate policies on to families, friends, disabled people and rural transport.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)]

I rarely intervene on another spokesperson’s speech, but this raises a question: if the Liberal Democrats want these expensive policies and say that consumers should not pay, who should pay?

[Edward Morello]

I thank the hon. Member for the opportunity to clarify my point. It is not about whether the consumer pays; it is about whether the airports are using the revenue they claim they are generating to support climate policies for that purpose, or whether it is simply another revenue stream for them. Airports and providers must use the money correctly, rather than just levying another tax on passengers.

Regulation could take several forms. There could be a cap on drop-off charges linked to inflation. There could be a requirement for a free short-stay grace period. There could be mandatory exemptions for disabled passengers and carers. There could be greater transparency on how revenues are used and whether they genuinely fund sustainable transport.

What we cannot do is to continue to allow airports to exploit their control over access to extract ever higher fees from consumers who have no meaningful choice. It is time we recognised that airport drop-off charges have become unfair, unregulated and disconnected from their original purpose. I hope the Government will act.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)]

It is lovely to see you in the Chair, Ms Vaz. I join all other contributors today in congratulating the hon. Member for Bolton South and Walkden (Yasmin Qureshi) on securing this debate. We often say, “This is an important debate,” and most of the time in this Chamber we do not mean it, but on this occasion I think we do.

Through some very articulate speeches, building one upon the other, the debate has exposed two significant problems with the current state of affairs in drop-off charges at our airports: first, whether we should be charging in the first place; and secondly, if we accept the proposition of the hon. Member for Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton (Jim McMahon) that it is okay to charge for drop-offs, whether the process of charging is itself fair. Frankly, I was taken by surprise on this point, which was raised repeatedly. At multiple airports, the charging mechanism is itself unfair, as it does not give the opportunity of point-of-service charging—a barrier at which the customer pays—but instead requires customers to pay after the event by what are, at times, very complex mechanisms.

I was a barrister a very long time ago. There is a health warning on my legal advice, but this matter was first settled in 1877 by Mellish LJ—I do not have this at the back of my memory; I looked it up—in Parker v. South Eastern Railway Company. When parking somewhere, the terms and conditions are typically on a board. A provider seeking to rely on those contractual terms has to take reasonably sufficient steps to draw them to the consumer’s attention for the contract to be established, and it must be at or before the point at which the contract becomes established.

The reason why that triggered my memory is because, in my day, I learned about a very famous judge—Lord Denning, the Master of the Rolls—who developed the argument in Spurling v. Bradshaw in 1956. He said that the principle covers typical, expected terms and conditions, but if there are particularly onerous conditions as part of the standard terms, the level of notice has to increase to a commensurate degree.

I am interested to hear the Minister’s considered thoughts on this issue. I wonder whether a requirement not to pay now, but to pay later and by a circuitous route, would constitute an onerous term when dealing with a consumer, as these contracts almost always are. If that is the case, has a contract been established at all with any of the people dropping off at these airports? I cannot give legal advice, and I am very out of date anyway, but consumer rights groups should explore this issue with a test case—a group action would run to many millions of pounds if it were proved successful. That is the point about whether charging is fair.

[Jim McMahon]

Throughout the whole conversation, the thing that keeps coming to mind is: why would the airports not want to provide a payment option to pay there and then at drop-off, if not for the fact that they would raise less revenue because they would not be able to charge a penalty if people miss the 24-hour window?

[Jerome Mayhew]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. That is exactly the kind of evidence that a judge would assess to establish whether sufficient notice had been given and how onerous a term is.

The second part is about whether the travelling public accept that this is a reasonable charge and has become the norm, as the hon. Member for Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton asserts. An awful lot of people do not feel that it is fair in principle to charge for this service, because no real service is being supplied. People are occupying a bit of tarmac for one or two minutes. It used to be free, so the feeling of value is limited at best.

The hon. Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) talked about a hidden charge, and he was absolutely right. As passengers, we are incredibly price-conscious when it comes to buying our flights. We will wear only one pair of socks for the entire holiday in order not to pay for baggage. We then get lumped with paying a tenner for being dropped off, and it is a hidden cost—it is not in the headline price of the flight.

I totally understand the reaction of many that this is unfair, and that the market is not working. The communal reaction is that we must regulate. Perhaps we should, but before we do so we need to understand why airports are raising these charges. I am sorry to say that in many cases it is because this Labour Government are forcing them to do exactly that.

If Government policy increases costs for airports, the airports, as rational commercial organisations, will seek to recover those costs from their consumers, because there is no one else—ultimately, the consumer always pays. This Government have increased employer national insurance contributions, levying more than £900 in additional tax for every single employee on the books. They have raised business rates enormously and have increased environmental targets, which also have significant cash consequences. All of it comes for the consumer.

I will not deal with national insurance contributions because we all know how impactful that change has been, not just to pubs but right across the private sector.

[Danny Beales]

I am just a bit confused. The hon. Member suggests that drop-off charges are the responsibility of this Government. At Heathrow, the charge is £7, but it was £6 during the 14 years of the last Government, so proportionally—following his argument—90%, or whatever the maths says it is, of the cost came from the last Government and only 10% from this Government. I do not exactly follow the logic of his argument.

[Jerome Mayhew]

The logic is not exact, but if you increase costs, you cannot be surprised if prices go up. Essentially, that is the point I am making.

On business rates, Gatwick has had the worst increase. According to the Financial Times, its business rates have increased from £40 million a year to £90 million a year, so the Government have increased Gatwick’s costs by £50 million every single year. Where do they think that money will come from? It will come from the consumer via drop-off charges, other additional charges or increases in the landing rates applied to airlines—such increases would go on to the consumer through increased air fares. It is therefore financially illiterate for the Government to very substantially raise the cost of doing business—particularly for airports, with their increased business rates—and then complain when these companies raise their charges.

There are additional costs on airports, which I will briefly talk about, because of environmental and net zero targets and requirements. Many airports have directly cited those costs to explain why they are raising charges. Many of them, including Bristol, Heathrow and Gatwick, have said that they are trying to raise drop-off charges to force passengers to use alternative modes of mass transport. That would be fine and well if additional public transport were available for those people being disincentivised from using their car.

However, I do not agree that we should penalise passengers by using the stick of increased charges to force them to use a less convenient mode of transport to get to the airport. Instead, we should lure passengers to airports by providing a method of public transport that is even more convenient than using the car. That is where the Government have gone wrong, because they have incentivised airports to use the stick of payments or costs to beat their own customers without providing an attractive alternative to car use.

I fear that I am running short of time—I see that I have one minute left—so I will not do the peroration where I say, “Aren’t the Conservatives wonderful? We are re-evaluating our environmental policies to get rid of the target of net zero by 2050, which is driving the transition at such a pace that it is increasing costs unrealistically, and we should be focusing on the consumer rather than on interest groups.” However, I hope that in the time available to him the Minister will show that he takes seriously what is genuinely an important issue that affects many millions of people around the country. It is an unfairness in plain sight. This is his opportunity to assure all our constituents that they have been listened to and that the Government are taking this issue seriously.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keir Mather]

I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution.

In the time remaining, I want to turn to the actual operating model of these parking charges. Most UK airports are privately operated and have the commercial freedom to set their own fees for the services they provide, but the Government expect fees to be set in a way that is both fair and proportionate. Well-designed parking facilities help to manage traffic flows and improve accessibility and local air quality. At the same time, airports must encourage passengers to use public transport options where possible.

Although all that is being considered, I am sure that some hon. Members in the Chamber will be disappointed to hear that the Government do not believe that it is their role to dictate parking prices from Whitehall. Airports must retain the ability to manage their own infrastructure; the Government’s role is to ensure that competition and consumer laws are protected. Ultimately, each airport operator must justify the charges they levy and show that they are fair, transparent and carried out with proper accountability.

We support the continued success of our world-leading aviation sector, but we must do so in a way that delivers a green, more sustainable future. Airports should use their surface access strategies to set clear targets for sustainable travel and offer positive and practical incentives so that people do not drive to airports, but instead to use public transportation. When airports develop those strategies, they must clearly set out their approaches to parking and drop-off charges, and they must use their airport transport forums to plan future transport options in consultation with local people. My hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip made that point powerfully.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South and Walkden said, many airports, including Manchester, offer a range of parking options, including free drop-off zones for passengers and public transport, but it is important that everyone who needs to can access our airports. Some parking options and public transport alternatives may not always work for passengers with accessibility needs. Although airports such as Manchester offer exemptions for blue badge holders, I want to push that further.

More than anything, today’s debate has highlighted the importance of fairness and transparency. It is essential that passengers can easily find information about parking and drop-off options so that they can plan their journeys and make the right, informed choice. We expect airport parking and drop-off charges to be clear and accessible, both online and at the airport itself. Airports must also make it easy for their customers to pay the relevant fee in a timely manner before proceeding to issue penalty charges for failure to do so. I was disappointed to hear Members across the House give examples of where that has not been the case for their constituents. I undertake to remind airports, including Manchester airport, of their obligations.

[Jerome Mayhew]

The hon. Member for Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton (Jim McMahon) made the very good point that the notice of the charge was situated beyond the point at which someone could reverse out. Will the Minister undertake to remind Manchester airport that any notice of a charge has to be at a place where people can decide not to accept the charge?

[Keir Mather]

It should be incumbent on all airports, including Manchester airport, to provide transparency, clarity and ease of access to information about parking charges, so I will happily raise that when I next meet Manchester airport representatives. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South and Walkden needs no support in being a champion for her constituents in this space.

Importantly, airport users are protected by consumer law. Most airports have contracts with private parking operators, which must belong to a trade association and follow the sector’s new code of practice and appeals procedure. If drivers feel that signage is inadequate or that they have been treated unfairly, they can appeal through those services.

More widely, we recognise concerns about poor practices among some private parking operators. That is why the Government have consulted on proposals to raise standards, in preparation for a new code of practice and compliance framework. Responses are now being analysed, and we will publish our response in due course. I am cognisant of the pressure that this creates on local communities, as the hon. Member for Surrey Heath mentioned. He also mentioned ghost plates, which we are taking real action to tackle through the road safety strategy.

I again congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South and Walkden on securing the debate, and I thank all Members who have contributed. The debate has shone a light on drop-off and parking charges at airports, and reinforced the Government’s expectation that airports manage the arrangements with fairness and respect. We will continue to work to ensure that they do so, and I encourage Members across the House to join us in those efforts.