Luton has stepped the drop off/pick up charge up from £2.50 for up to 10 mins then reasonable increments for 20 and 30 mins. It is now £3 for 10 mins, and £1 FOR EVERY MINUTE AFTER. This immediately panics drivers and will lead to an accident.
The fees are exactly the same as Stansted who also charge a £1 a minute after 10 minutes. At the moment I don't think Luton is making those additional charges, as I have yet to find a number plate reader on the lead in to the drop off zone or even on the approach road, as that was one of the things I was on the lookout for. I have a suspicion that they will be attached to the passenger bridge over the approach road when it is built. At the moment the £1 fees per minute are not displayed anywhere in the drop off zone so I have seen no evidence of anyone in a rush to get out.
One way around those £1 a minute charges, if applied, would be after leaving the drop off zone is to drive into the short term car park, which has a number plate reader and is before the pay barrier for the drop off zone and pay the minimum charge for the use of that car park and then leave via the different exit.
Of all the charges levied by airports the drop off charges are the most universally detested, I mean £3 to open your car door and let somebody get out.
I have been around Luton for enough years to know that charges have to be applied at Luton. In pre-charging days drivers would just drive into the drop off zone and wait indefinitely for their passengers even if it was an hour or more. The airport even got their own council traffic wardens to patrol the drop off zone but as long as the drivers stayed with their cars they were left alone so more and more cars would have to drop passengers in the middle of the road as there was no spare kerbside.
Most people see that any drop off charge is a rip off but is it really. Assuming that each car carries an average of two passengers the airport could make the drop off free and add £1.50 to passenger charges, which the airlines would pick up and who would then add that fee to the ticket price. In that scenario no one would complain yet they have still paid the extra fee but so would passengers arriving by public transport.
So lets look at why the airport charges fees to use the drop off:
It reduces airport charges to airlines so the ticket price is lower so stimulates demand.
It encourages passengers to conciser using public transport.
By offering 2 hours free parking in the long term car park and 15 minutes free in the mid term car park it encourages drivers to pick up and drop off outside the CTA so reducing the traffic in the CTA.
With a bill of £110 million for the terminal redevelopment and another £200 million for a rail link plus the day to day costs of running an airport Luton Airport is not a charity. If they didn't make money from the drop off they would still have to get the money from the passengers by other means.