"Pick-up charges land UK airport chiefs in a storm"

Monday, October 23, 2006

Pick-up charges land airport chiefs in a storm
By Dean Kirby
United Kingdom - The Manchester Evening News


BOSSES at Manchester Airport have stirred up a storm over plans to make
people pay for picking up relatives. 

The M.E.N has been inundated with calls from readers angry at moves to stop
them collecting passengers outside the terminal buildings.

Airport chiefs announced last week they were getting tough on waiting
restrictions, to improve safety and security and to encourage more people to
use public transport, from November 1.

This means motorists, including private hire drivers, will have to leave
their vehicles in short-stay car parks at a cost of £1.80.

Pensioner Valerie Brown, whose husband John, 68, uses a wheelchair, said:
"I'm appalled. All disabled passengers using the airport are going to
suffer."

Mrs Brown, 67, from Denton, added: "We use the airport four times a year. If
someone picks us up under the new rules, it will be very difficult for us to
get to one of the car parks with our bags. I don't think the powers-that-be
understand what they're doing."

Harry Moffatt, 53, from Offerton, Stockport, said: "I'm outraged. They say
it's about safety and security but let them prove it. It's all about money.
It's profiteering, pure and simple."

The rules will be enforced at Terminal 1 on November 1, Terminal 3 in
December and Terminal 2 in January. The 10-minute free period allowed at
Terminal 1 is being withdrawn.

The airport, owned by the Manchester Airports Group, made £35m on parking
last year. It will make another £900,000 with the changes.

Paul Goggins, MP for Wythenshawe and Sale East, felt the charge was
reasonable because the airport had to control waiting restrictions round
terminals.

But he said he would write to the airport to ensure provisions were being
made to keep passengers safe walking between terminals and car parks. 

He says he will also inquire about the provision of disabled parking
facilities.

A Manchester Airport spokesman said disabled spaces within the multi-storey
car parks were already nearest the terminals. Last week the M.E.N revealed
how private hire drivers, who will also have to pay £1.80, felt about the
controversial scheme.

Paul Meek, chairman of the Manchester Private Hire Drivers' Association,
representing 3,000 drivers, said the move was "horrendous".

Drivers of black cabs will be exempt from the payments but they already pay
£270 a year for a permit to operate at the airport.

Some have expressed fears the airport is planning to put barriers round
their pick-up lanes and make them pay an extra fee every time they collect a
passenger from March 31.

One said he feared it could cost him £2,000 just to pick up passengers if
black cabs were charged 80p a time.

Andy Cliffe, commercial director of car parks at Manchester Airport, said
the airport was looking at ideas for changing the way black cabs pay - in a
bid to make it fairer.

He said: "Manchester city council's licensed hackney carriages currently pay
an annual permit fee to operate from the airport. The current permit system
was agreed for three years and expires on March 31.

"We are looking at alternatives to the existing scheme, and one option is
that drivers could pay per visit to the airport - a charge they themselves
feel would be fairer."

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