Results tagged “Birmingham AIrport” from Birmingham Mail - Is It Just Me

Is there anything we will not do in this country to squeeze a few extra pennies out of the long suffering public? These days the nearest we get to public service is charging the public for any service provided.

I must admit it is a while since I actually picked anyone up at Birmingham airport. When I use it I tend to park there so it came as a bit of a shock to come across the £1 drop off charge for the first time.

For those who don't know, the airport charges you for the privilege of taking or collecting their passengers - and if a flight is delayed or baggage is slow to arrive and you find yourself staying beyond the 15 minutes parking that your pound buys then you might as well take out a mortgage. Stay a couple of hours and it would be cheaper to leave the car and buy a new one!

The airport claim it is a security measure after the attack on Glasgow Airport and presumable the several million a year that chinks into the airport coffers through the payment machines is just an unfortunate side effect of the terrorist threat.

Strangely other airports manage to avoid being blown to smithereens without screwing everyone who wants to fly from there for a quid. Now I can see you don't want people parked outside the terminals for hours on end but a moderate period of free parking to allow the drop off and collection of what are after all the airport's passengers, their bread and butter business, seems to be the minimum service an airport should provide and one which most manage.

But then again, there is no money in that. Public service has no place on a modern balance sheet. With the summer holiday season underway the terrorist threat is a licence to print money.