New airport “tax” said to put holiday makers at risk
A handful of the countries airports are being chastised today for what they are calling a ‘kiss and fly tax’ that charges people for dropping off passengers to the airport, even if they will only be there a matter of minutes. Several airports have opted to introduce the ‘tax’ including Leeds Bradford and Edinburgh airport and patrons are outraged at the 2 pound charge required to use the car park, regardless of how brief their stay is.
Previously, users of the car park were allowed up to ten minutes to drop off or collect passengers before they were required to pay, now with this new scheme people must incur a 2 pound surcharge whatever the length of their stay. This has affected taxi drivers in particular who have had to add the cost of the new charge on to the price of their fair.
This charge, however, transcends a mere car park payment and is in fact set to cause some real issues with safety in and around the airports. A backlash is expected when the charge is brought in and many are suggesting that passengers will boycott the car parks and opt to walk to the airport terminals from the surrounding areas. This has two major issues with safety. One, of course is that people will be walking across busy main roads with heavy luggage (as with most airports situations) and this causes a risk to both the people doing the walking and the traffic on the roads. Airport complexes are seldom designed for pedestrians but people can now see little in the way of choice if they want to avoid expensive car park costs.
The second issue is that if people are not happy to pay the cost and are being dropped off outside of the usual airport drop off points then there will be a rise in traffic congestion. Traffic congestion is not good at the best of times but in a busy airport environment it is simply asking for trouble. There will be a rise in congestion of both people and cars in an area that is designed for neither.
Security is also a matter that may be affected by the new plans as the outer perimeters of the airport now have to be watched as well as the inner ones. Security is key in an airport and peoples’ safety is paramount. If, therefore, airport security now has to deal with problems and issues outside of the airport, they will not be focused on other more important things, something not to be taken lightly in an international airport.
With all the expense of going on holiday, it does not seem right that a person cannot be dropped off at an airport for free. With so many other costs when flying (including airport tax) the least an airport could do is to let a person be dropped off at the airport free of charge and it is simply mean for an airport to not allow this to happen. What’s more, it is only a handful of airports that are doing this, so why can some allow free drop offs and others not.
