Heathrow fee hike to airlines ‘could put £100 on price of a family break’
THE cost of a family summer holiday could soar by up to £100 next year due to Heathrow airport’s ‘outrageous’ price hikes, former British Airways boss Willie Walsh warned last night.
Heathrow, which is owned by a consortium of billionaire investors, wants to increase the charges airlines pay to use the airport by more than 90 per cent from January – from £19.36 to £37.63.
Airlines add these charges to ticket prices, meaning a family of five could pay almost £100 more for flights from Heathrow if the proposal gets the green light from the Civil Aviation Authority regulator in the coming days.
Mr Walsh accused Heathrow of acting like a ‘greedy monopoly’ and said its wealthy shareholders must ‘step up’ to provide investment after years of generous dividend payouts.
The Irishman, who now runs the International Air Transport Association trade body, has joined BA and Virgin Atlantic in lobbying the regulator to block the price hikes.
Mr Walsh said: ‘Heathrow must understand that gouging its customers is not the road to recovery for itself, the airlines, travel and tourism jobs, or travellers.
‘I have sympathy for some airports, but looking for a 90 per cent increase, I just find that outrageous. There is simply no justification for that, and the only reason they are doing that is because they believe they can.
‘Instead, it’s time for Heathrow’s shareholders to invest. The recovery of the UK’s travel and tourism industry impacts millions of jobs. They cannot be held hostage to the intransigence of what is effectively a greedy monopoly hub airport.’
Heathrow’s seven billionaire owners include the sovereign wealth funds of Qatar, Singapore and China. It has paid out about £4billion in dividends since 2012 and has said it could restart payouts next year, after pausing them over the pandemic, if its debts come under control.
Heathrow bases its charges on the numbers using the airport. It expects around 40million passengers next year, compared to 80million before the pandemic, and said this means each passenger must pay more to cover the shortfall.
Company documents show Heathrow could raise £1.6billion from airport charges next year, to offset Covid losses of £2.9billion.
A Heathrow spokesman said: ‘We’ve proposed a balanced increase of 4 per cent to the average airfare, which will allow us to continue targeted investment in the airport’s resilience and to maintain basic service standards.’
But Mr Walsh said: ‘I am critical of any airport who believes they have the right to significantly increase charges at this time to recover money they didn’t get because of coronavirus. You can imagine if an airline tried to say “you owe us money because you didn’t fly with us in 2020” – they’d be laughed out of court.’
BA chief executive Sean Doyle and Virgin Atlantic executives are in talks with the CAA about Heathrow’s proposals. They say passengers travelling from Heathrow pay the highest charges in the world and the planned 90 per cent increase outstrips proposed hikes of between 2 and 9 per cent at airports such as Paris and Frankfurt.
Luis Gallego, chief executive of BA owner IAG, said: ‘Doubling charges at Heathrow, which is already the world’s most expensive hub airport, will thwart our industry’s ability to support the recovery of UK businesses.’
Corneel Koster, chief operating officer at Virgin Atlantic, said: ‘Heathrow is prioritising its shareholders at the expense of airlines and consumers. Just as UK airlines have raised significant funds from shareholders to weather the pandemic, it’s only right that Heathrow turns to its owners first.’