Originally Posted by
Buster the Bear
Allegedly the 'drop off fees' are a huge cash cow for the airport operator. When I say huge, more like gargantuan!
The only document I can find regarding how passengers get to/from the airport is the "London Luton Airport Surface Access Strategy " document published in 2009, and it states 28.3% of passengers arrive/depart the airport by car pick up/drop off and 13.5% arrive by taxi, totalling 41.8%.
(Source - https://www.london-luton.co.uk/corpo...ccess-strategy)
These are very crude and basic figures, but based on the airport as it is right now, operating at 17 million passengers a year, that 41.8% figure works out to be 6.656 million passengers.
If we halved that figure assuming every car bringing passengers to the airport was carrying two passenger, that works out to be nearly £10 million a year in £3 fees.
In addition 18.7% in 2009 were using the airports on-site car parking facilities.... That, percentage equates to about 3.1 million passengers now, when you factor in the cheapest daily charges available online are around £8,50 a day, and those fees go up exponentially, if you use short stay or don't book in-advance, the mind boggles at how much money they are making here!
About 38% of passengers are arriving by bus/train/off-site parking services... I think we can all be confident the airport is making a cut on coach tickets and the train shuttle service, so probably a nice bit of revenue there too. Also I'm sure companies like AirParks at Slip End pay a handsome fee to operate their buses to airport and being allowed to have their own bus bay at the terminal bus station probably comes with a hefty price tag!
The figures could be very different now and in the ways people get to the airport, but it gives food for thought, how much the airport is making, in just ground access to/from the airport. No wonder they can afford to keep re-configuring the the drop-off zone every few months!
