A mysterious £8.90 tax is being added to all Heathrow flights

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• Chrisasaurus says:

  9 Feb9 February 06:19

  Am I missing something in drawing a dotted line between this and the other Heathrow article of this morning?

  • Rob says:

    9 Feb9 February 09:33

    It seems not, oddly.

  • Bagoly says:

    9 Feb9 February 11:50

    It seems that the actions are not legally related.
    But somehow I think they probably came out of the same workstream, and were probably approved at the same executive meeting.

• BJ says:

  9 Feb9 February 06:24

  SCANDAL!

• Lux says:

  9 Feb9 February 06:34

  Maybe ‘exceptional’ as it could be removed at any point:

  ‘Airport Cost Recovery Charge

  This charge has been introduced at the request of the airlines as an alternative way to recover costs related to airline ORCs such as Baggage, PRS, FEGP and Common Use IT. The Airport Cost Recovery Charge includes the 2020 under recovery as well as certain 2021 cost such as annuities and allocated costs for these ORCs. The Airport Cost Recovery Charge reduces the unit rate of these ORCs, all of which are included in this General Notice. The consultation process for this fee began in 2020 and full details of the prices and costs have been agreed at ORCG.

  The Airport Cost Recovery Charge will apply from 1st January 2021, initially set at £8.90 per departing passenger, billed monthly in arrears.

  The recovery of these costs will be tracked monthly at ORCG and following normal consultaton may be adjusted during the year to achieve full cost recovery and removal of the fee by 31st December 2021.’

• Phillip says:

  9 Feb9 February 06:36

  Well, the third runway got the green light again in December, and although not a lot will happen in the immediate future, they’ll want to expand the moment things get back to a pre-Covid state!

• Dwb1873 says:

  9 Feb9 February 06:40

  Some of the those price rises, percentage wise, are astonishing. And they still plan on adding more… wow.

  • Lux says:

    9 Feb9 February 06:43

    And my interpretation is that this does not require CAA approval as it’s changing how an existing charge is billed, rather than changing the charge itself.

    I’m not a regulatory lawyer but I do remember when BAA charges used to be published as ‘junk mail’ inside Flight International…

    • kitten says:

      9 Feb9 February 13:43

      After the parking cr4p this is too much.

• John says:

  9 Feb9 February 06:40

  Long haul is a bit more expensive now, but BA will lose the £8.90 on RFS flights and may partially absorb the charge on low fare short haul to remain competitive

• Dubious says:

  9 Feb9 February 06:53

  I suppose that makes some sense given the increased use of self-checking and online-check in versus having someone logged in at a manual check-in desk.

• ThinkSquare says:

  9 Feb9 February 07:38

  My next flight just got more expensive? Are you suggesting other airports are going to do this too?

  • Andrew says:

    9 Feb9 February 07:48

    Just Rob’s usual assumption that everyone flies from LHR

    • Chrisasaurus says:

      9 Feb9 February 08:07

      It at all, look at it economically- if LHR flights cost base increases then so can the other airports without being uncompetitive

      If you raise your prices, I can still raise mine and remain cheaper

    • Rob says:

      9 Feb9 February 09:23

      If this is rebased pricing due to falls in passenger numbers to ensure the Regulatory Asset Base minimum return is hit, then other airports which use the RAB method for charging will also be putting up prices.

      • Lux says:

        9 Feb9 February 10:33

        Which I believe is only LHR and LGW.

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