Heathrow fee hike ‘may put £100 on family hol’

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 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. 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.

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.’

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