I hear what you're saying, but I still think you need to be careful when drawing parallels between what TFL (an arm of local government) and Heathrow (a private company) can and can't do.

If it helps, a number of other non-local-authority English airports (Gatwick, EMA, Bristol, for example) all issue invoices in the form of PCNs to follow up non-payment of their drop-off charges. I can't see any reason why Heathrow should be able to justify being a special case.

But yes, time will tell.

Once Bylaws are in place, it seems to be that PCN's automatically follow, regardless of who is managing the enforcement and if the Bylaw includes provision for fines, they will be applied. Fighting PCN's is another tedious process of modern life - there is some small chance of winning but life is too short........

Not necessarily true.

Gatwick's byelaws have pretty much the same provision for fines as Heathrow's. But if you transgress at LGW's Drop-off Zone, you get a PCN, it's not a fine for contravening the byelaws.

Drop off charge terms and conditions - Gatwick Airport

I wouldn't say that the prediction is premature as the Heathrow website linked to in post #2 states the following:
As to the amount of the penalty charge.
The drop off fee at Gatwick is also £5 and the charge for non payment is £100 (reduced to £60 if paid within 14 days of the PCN being issued) so I wouldn't be surprised if the penalty at Heathrow is very similar to this.

It was, and still is, premature, given that the linked page says "More details on the scheme, registering your vehicle, and making payments will be published in due course". We don't yet know these details.

In particular, the FAQ that you quote fails to define any time limit for retrospective payment of the £5 charge, saying simply that a PCN will be issued "if no payment is received". So arguably, based on the preceding, even when you receive a PCN, you still have the option to pay the original £5 charge.

Contrast that with, for example, the London Congestion Charge whose FAQs explicitly specify the deadline for paying the charge, after which a PCN will be triggered.

You may well be right DRUK. My view is based on deep cynicism, after living all my adult life in the UK. As a child my British father held the view that 'The Americans were only out to make a fast buck'. Whether that was true in his day, I cannot know - but in the last 40 years I have seen a very considerable range of British companies and people who are only out to make a fast buck! As I have said, everyone is trying to claw back the loss of Covid, £1 at a time. One of the side effects of this is inflation (amongst other causes for the inflation wave heading towards us).

ps Another example of UK pricing strategy following that of a well known LCC (that does not operate from LHR!) Booking cinema tickets online and they are going to charge 0.95p per ticket for online booking. Once the system is up, maintenance is seriously less than having humans answering phones etc. But I have no choice. If I drove to the cinema of an evening, I could advance book - would the cost of the petrol and parking be more than 0.95p per ticket? So they will get £4.75 on top of the seat price. The LCC method of pricing rules and getting extra for dropping the pax off is all part of the same story. [end of grumpy moment]

Heathrow's website now has updated details.

They appear to have settled on a similar deadline to the TfL Congestion Charge - you must pay the charge by midnight on the day following your visit.

If you fail to pay, a PCN (not a fine) will be issued.

Terminal Drop-Off Charge

Drop Off Charges Heathrow Website Inforrmation

Drop-Off areas are located right outside the terminal for the easiest and quickest way to drop-off passengers.

There is a £5 charge for vehicles entering the drop-off areas, discounts and exemptions apply. The charge is priced at £5 per visit.

Our car parks remain open, where normal parking charges apply. The drop-off charge does not affect passenger pick-ups, which will continue to take place via the car parks. You cannot pick up passengers from the drop-off zones.

How to pay

You can pay in advance, on the day you drop-off, or by midnight the next day. You have three ways to pay: online, by autopay functionality or by automated telephone service.

Usually when leaving Thiefrow I am returning a rental car so it didn't affect me, however the last time I returned the car the afternoon before leaving and took Uber from the hotel in the morning.

There is a dedicated hotel shuttle which services nearby hotels, but you can get dropped off near a bus stop along Bath Road within the free travel zone and ride the rest of the way in at no cost.

Those thieving gits have been ripping travelers off for years with so called Duty Free prices which exceed normal shop prices. Even other retailers are in on it by asking to scan your boarding pass so they can claim the VAT back which goes straight into their pocket.

I eat outside Pret a Manager rather than pay the extra to sit down inside as well.

Not any more, you can't: Changes to subsidies for public transport

It's a Fiver! Expressed as a % of even the cheapest fare ex-LHR, it's not a whole hill o'beans is it?

It's the principle of the thing, everyone is in on it these days with their hands out for additional fees and charges. What next, railway stations charging for dropping off passengers ? The airport gets a passenger service fee from the airlines for every pax that departs from there and screws the retailers who in turn screw the travellers with inflated prices.

I already try and avoid flying long haul out of the UK due to the APD, preferring to make my way somewhere else and leave from there instead. I've arrived in the UK and stopped over in Paris, Zurich and Dublin on the way home and enjoyed visiting a new city with the total cost similar to leaving from LHR, once other countries lower departure taxes are taken into account. Amsterdam is next on the list as a couple of Eurostar tickets and a night in a hotel, or a 24 stopover with KLM can be had from the savings.

I do the same (or was pre covid,) Brussels worked great with a local train to Amsterdam and Eurostar onwards . Wonderful hotel at St Pancras too.

As krismiller says it often makes a lot of sense to go outside the UK for LH - if you're going away for several weeks an extra night in Paris,or AMS is a great way to start - and the USA via Dublin is even better

If you are retired, you almost certainly have the time to spend 24h in Paris on the way to wherever you are going
If you have a job or run your own business, with limited days off work... then the situation is different

Asturias56

And the most enormous pain in the **** when all you want to do is get home to your bed. Flying over the UK into the EU only to have to backtrack can be a pain point, and short checking your bag won't be allowed for revenue protection reasons. The DUB stop is a good option though.

Dublin into the USA is very painless I've found

I can say that, the older I get the more I seek point to point. Dog-legs were fine 25+ years ago but I agree with SOF that the last short leg to home is painful. On my most regular long haul to South Africa, I have gone via several Euro hubs over the decades and used to enjoy the transit but now only consider directs.

I work, though have decent leave, and find that travelling ex EU (though I have had great J & F deals ex U.K.) is a great way to get great biz deals. Currently in AUH and recently in DXB having done BCN-CDG-DXB-AMS-MAD in J for just under 800 quid each. We just make BCN and MAD a part of the hol. Result.

I had to go to the Sofitel at Terminal 5 yesterday and got completly lost and ended up driving down the departures drop off zone without stopping. I hope I don't get a penality!