Newquay Airport Development Fund

[greenbroker]

As most are probably aware, there is an Airport Development Fund in operation for departing passengers at Newquay airport (UK).

A charge of £5 is required and a ticket issued and then is collected at the boarding gate.

There is quite a bit of information available on their website, regarding who to make a complaint to etc.

However, there is no explanation regarding how a passenger will be treated if they refuse to pay.

Does anybody know the answer to that?

[MrSoft]

My recollection is, you cannot go through security unless you have the voucher.

It does catch out a fair few travellers, because the process is not exactly slick (a hacked-together former car park ticket machine in the terminal) and there was no reminder signage anywhere in the security queue itself. Said oblivious travellers are turned away, get their voucher, and join the back of the queue again.

I never minded paying, mainly as I understand the withdrawal of the RAF from this facility means the airport has to find extra money to fund the ATC or it's curtains.

[Capot]

This is the same scam as practised at Norwich. It breaks so many laws that it's not even amusing.

It is a charge for using the facilities, which goes into the airport's revenue just like any other charge. Doing it as a spurious "Facility Development Charge" or whatever idiotic name is dreamed up for it, merely means that the airpkrt tried and failed to get the airlines to agree to higher passenger service charges, so they hit people this way.

Rest assured, there is no way the funds extorted in this way will be ring-fenced for future development, if the cash is needed by the airport now.

VAT is due on this charge, as an output of the airport operator. So that's the Government and accounting view of the charge; it's simply another revenue stream contributing to turnover and profit.

Don't forget to ask for your VAT receipt, but better still refuse to pay it since as a passenger who simply bought a ticket and turned up you have NO advance notice that this sum would be extorted as a condition of allowing you to board your flight. If it is a condition of using the airport then the airport has the obligation to make sure you know that before you buy the ticket, not to rely on the airline to to that.

Resist, make a fuss, be difficult, make a scene, persuade fellow-passengers to do the same. Join the queue for security without paying it. Object forcefully at not being allowed through. Airports should not be allowed to get away with this disgraceful behaviour by people being too nice to take action.

[PAXboy]

"Power to the people", Citizen Capot.

Since you have now informed people - then they cannot turn up at the airport and say that they did not know. They might say that they had not heard from the airport but to argue that in court? You know it won't work.

Whilst I would not be surprised to learn that this assertion is true:
It breaks so many laws that it's not even amusing.I have lived in the world long enough to know that turning up to argue this will have zero effect upon the airport. Zero effect upon the (spineless) CAA but a less than zero effect upon the protesting individual. Still, it will give the rather bored Police something to do and to tell their families how they had to throw this bloke out into the car park.

I agree that 'development fund' sounds like a scam, so you might want to monitor their activities for the next five years and then mount a legal challenge if they don't build their own Terminal 2.

Sorry but it won't work.

[MrSoft]

Capot, I can see you have travelled through Norwich airport, but have you been to Newquay airport?


Airports should not be allowed to get away with this disgraceful behaviour by people being too nice to take action.


You may or may not be right, but the course of action you recommend is foolhardy and would just end up in a confrontation you have no hope of winning. You suggest that there are strong legal grounds for objecting, so maybe that's the way to go instead.

Although tiny, Newquay airport has one of the tightest security regimes of any airport I've been through ( - I believe it is a training facility for security personnel). I had my suitcase searched every single time I went through there. Dissenters have no chance

What I can see, is that the airport facility has improved significantly each time I make my annual trip through the place and hence I have decided to set aside my natural cynicism about the £5 charge.