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

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• Darren S says:

  9 Feb9 February 07:48

  Could this be used to fund lateral flow COVID-19 tests on people when they arrive back in Heathrow on their return journey before they are allowed to cross the border? Government concerned about fraudulent tests and insufficient checks by airline before boarding the plane.

  • insider says:

    9 Feb9 February 09:44

    no, it’s used to fund the costs incurred by Heathrow on things like electricity, baggage systems etc.

    • kitten says:

      9 Feb9 February 13:46

      What’s the Passenger Service Charge and the existing airport costs for then?

      If the UK Government and its agent the CAA haven’t got the b*lls to tell Heathrow to throw this back at their shareholders then the UK is a $h1t country that hasn’t got any business sense.

      • insider says:

        9 Feb9 February 22:38

        LHR operates under a single till. The operating costs, depreciation and ‘regulated profit’ = commercial shop revenue + aeronautical revenue. The aeronautical revenue is the balancing part, which LHR recover from airlines through PSC as you mention and landing fees. If they recover too much, they adjust their PSC / landing fees rate card 2 years later and vice versa.

        Other regulated charges are things like utilities, baggage services etc. that fall outside of the single till (i think)

  • John says:

    9 Feb9 February 10:53

    They’d charge you again for those separately

• Matthew says:

  9 Feb9 February 07:52

  Both the flight from LHR I have been tracking for weeks have gone up by £9….

• Track says:

  9 Feb9 February 08:05

  Travel industry should be rightly worried.

  • Brian says:

    9 Feb9 February 08:33

    When things eventually open up, whenever that is, people will be desperate for a holiday abroad after spending a couple of summers in Bognor. £8 won’t make much of a difference.

  • Chrisasaurus says:

    9 Feb9 February 08:55

    While that is true, £9 is not their biggest headache right now. Nobody flying this or next quarter is the least bit price sensitive…

• M Baldrick says:

  9 Feb9 February 08:15

  My flights for end of March were cancelled yesterday were cancelled so I was forced to change to end of April. I was told I had to pay and additional £10 something for each person and my card would be charged £20 and some pence. When i asked what it was for I wasn’t given an explanation just extra charges. I took as because it had gone into April it was something to do with new taxes. So if you think you won’t be charged for changing even though enforced you are wrong. I did!

  • Charlieface says:

    9 Feb9 February 09:21

    You should not have paid. If your flight is cancelled the airline need to cover the cost of a new ticket

  • TGLoyalty says:

    9 Feb9 February 10:27

    It’s your legal right to rebook for FREE if a £20 charge appears (I hope it doesn’t) I would phone back and demand a refund.

    I completely understand it’s only £20 but as a point of principle it should be free and you were lied to.

• George says:

  9 Feb9 February 08:49

  Probably airlines preemptively adding to the charge to tickets from April in the assumption that the CAA will rule in Heathrow’s favour in March

  • JDB says:

    9 Feb9 February 08:55

    This charge is totally separate from the CAA’s decision to come in July (last consultations close in March). As its name implies, the £8.90 under recovery charge is clawing back regulated charges that were previously under collected owing to the unprecedented shortfall in passengers. It isn’t some windfall; it is simply how Heathrow’s regulatory structure, set by the CAA, works.

    • PhatGit says:

      9 Feb9 February 09:43

      How is it totally separate? If Heathrow are now seeking to cover turnover rather than just profit, won’t the payments that the airlines pay to cover services also be in that turnover? Sounds a bit like double bubble to me

      • Rob says:

        9 Feb9 February 09:47

        That is true. Heathrow’s £2.8 billion is just plucked out the air anyway. They have, for a start, fired so many people that their cost base is a fraction of what it was. They also have few day to day costs.

        • TGLoyalty says:

          9 Feb9 February 10:29

          Typical negotiation tactic when you have a monopoly start stupidly high then meet somewhere you think was actually reasonable.

          In my field we wouldn’t entertain funding anything but actual fixed costs not recovered. You can get lost if you ask for “lost profit”

• insider says:

  9 Feb9 February 09:00

  Heathrow have been trying desperately hard to not lose out because of Covid and push all the losses onto the airlines and consumers. Whilst this is just a result of the formula that allows them to recover charges for things they haven’t managed to cut the cost of in 2020/21 (outside of the single till), they are still pushing hard to make sure the CAA cave in to their demands and allow them to increase the usage charge of Heathrow for the next 20 or so years

• RajBad says:

  9 Feb9 February 09:32

  Flying will change for the better post COVID!

• ChrisC says:

  9 Feb9 February 09:47

  “This charge had been introduced at the request of the airlines …”

  Page 6 of the linked document.

  More should be made of this fact,

  • Lux says:

    9 Feb9 February 10:34

    Can you imagine that meeting though!

  • kitten says:

    9 Feb9 February 16:57

    In other words their contracts aren’t structured to allow Heathrow to grab all the money they want from airlines, or regulation rightly caps what they can grab, or the airlines told Heathrow to S*d *ff ! and so here is little Heathrow that business whose monopoly profits are privatised, abusing consumers instead.

    Take aviation market supervision and consumer protection away from the.CAA if they too don’t tell Heathrow look to your own business resources available and No you may not use your monopoly position to abuse passengers.

    While they’re about it they can tell them to maintain the free bus service if they want to have any form of car access charge for any airport.

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