Tomorrow (Tuesday 6 January), Gatwick will hike its drop-off fees to £10. The airport currently charges £7 per entry to the drop-off zone enforced by ANPR cameras, but from tomorrow charges will rise by some 43 percent to £10 for the first 10 minutes. That means Gatwick will have the highest drop-off fee across all UK airports by £3. Three pounds doesn't sound like much until you remember Gatwick already had the joint highest fee at £7. Now it's alone at the top.
The airport is facing a major financial challenge, with its business rates bill set for an £11.9 million hike to £51.6 million in 2026-27, despite a 30 percent cap under transitional relief. Gatwick blames Chancellor Rachel Reeves. A spokeswoman said "this increase is not a decision we have taken lightly, however, we are facing a number of increasing costs, including a more than doubling of our business rates".
The rationale sounds reasonable until you realize the fee was introduced at £5 in March 2021, has steadily increased, reaching £7 in May 2025, and this latest jump places it £3 higher than any other airport nationwide. That's £5 to £10 in less than four years. A 100 percent increase. Blame business rates all you want, but doubling fees in four years suggests something beyond cost recovery.
London City: From Free to £8 Overnight
London City Airport is set to introduce a drop-off fee of £8 tomorrow, after previously not having one. Starting the same day as Gatwick, London City will charge £8 for the first 5 minutes of parking, then an extra £1 per minute for the next 5 minutes. That's £13 if you stay 10 minutes. More expensive than Gatwick if you account for time limits.
London City was the last of the UK's top 20 airports not to have a drop-off fee. Now every major airport charges. The charge will also be added to taxi fares, the airport said, meaning passengers pay regardless of how they arrive.
Bristol Joins the Party
Bristol Airport has confirmed it will increase its drop-off and pick-up tariff from £7 to £8.50 for up to 10 minutes from Monday, January 5, 2026. It comes after a series of increases over the last few years, rising from £5 to £6 in 2024 and up to £7 in 2025. Another £1.50 jump. That's a 21 percent increase in one year.
The airport has advised motorists who are dropping off and will be staying longer than 10 minutes to use the Short Stay car park, where drivers are able to stay for a maximum of two hours at a cost of £60. Sixty pounds for two hours. Read that again. Short stay parking now costs more per hour than some people earn.
The Excuse Keeps Repeating
Gatwick said "the increase will support wider efforts to encourage greater use of public transport, helping limit the number of cars and reduce congestion at the entrance to our terminals, alongside funding sustainable transport initiatives". Every airport uses identical language. Sustainability. Congestion. Public transport. All while business rates allegedly doubled overnight forcing fee increases nobody wants.
Clive Wratten, CEO of the Business Travel Association, said it was "increasingly clear that airports are watching each other and testing just how much they can get away with". He pointed to early departure times, specifically for business travel, which often take place at hours when buses and trains are not running reliably, noting that increasing costs and punishing drivers with expensive parking prices would not "suddenly make public transport more viable".
That's the reality nobody admits. You can't take public transport at 4am when your flight leaves at 6am. You can't take it when you're traveling with elderly relatives or young children. You can't take it when you have heavy luggage. Rod Dennis, senior policy officer at the RAC, said "drivers tell us the main reason they use drop-off facilities at airports is to help people with bulky or heavy luggage, something that can be incredibly impractical on public transport, especially if elderly relatives or young children are involved".
Europe Does It For Free
Drop-off charges are rare in Europe, according to RAC data. Among the continent's top 10 airports, only Amsterdam's Schiphol imposes one; free short stays are standard at Dublin and Paris Charles de Gaulle. Britain is the outlier. Guy Hobbs, a travel expert at consumer group Which?, described Gatwick's announcement as a "fresh blow to travellers", warning it will "add another layer of stress, frustration and cost to passengers".
Rod Dennis called it "a more than 40 percent increase in the cost to drop-off, the largest we've ever seen and represents a doubling of the fee first introduced in 2021". Doubled in four years. Tripled if you go back to when these didn't exist. He added: "The words 'Happy New Year' are unlikely to be uttered by drivers dropping off friends and family at Gatwick in January".
The Numbers Add Up
Heathrow airport is heading for a £35 million increase to £151.5 million in business rates for 2026-27, which is also capped at 30 percent. That's worse than Gatwick's £11.9 million increase. Yet Heathrow charges £7, same as before Gatwick's hike. If business rates justify £10 fees, why is Heathrow staying at £7 despite facing triple the rate increase?
Clive Wratten, CEO of the Business Travel Association, described the increase as a "naked money grab" and "a convenient excuse to increase fees that are already out of step with the passenger experience and the reality of regional connectivity".
The Workarounds Nobody Uses
At Gatwick, drivers can avoid fees by using long-stay car parks for free drop-offs, followed by a complimentary shuttle bus to terminals. Sounds great until you factor in the shuttle wait times, the walking, and the reality of traveling with luggage. The shuttles run every 10-12 minutes, so passengers must factor in enough time to get to check-in and boarding. Add 30 minutes to your journey for the privilege of avoiding a £10 fee.
Blue badge holders remain exempt. That's the one reasonable policy in all of this. Everyone else pays. Taxis are not exempt from the drop-off charges at Gatwick Airport, but drivers can add the charge to the passenger fare. So passengers pay anyway, just indirectly.
What Changed?
Half of the UK's busiest airports hiked fees in 2025. This isn't isolated price adjustment. It's coordinated extraction. Clive Wratten said "airports are watching each other and testing just how much they can get away with". They're not competing on price. They're competing on how high they can push fees before travelers revolt.
The war on motorists continues. First it was parking fines jumping 37.5 percent overnight. Then ULEZ expansion. Clean Air Zones. Low Emission Zones. Now airports charging £10 to say goodbye. Private hire taxi drivers and everyday travellers have labelled these "kiss-and-fly" fees as extremely exploitative, often passed directly to passengers.
Tomorrow morning, when you drop someone at Gatwick, it'll cost £10 for 10 minutes. London City will charge £8 for 5 minutes. Bristol wants £8.50. And every airport will claim it's about sustainability while blaming the Chancellor for doubling business rates nobody voted for. The cost of escaping for a break just got extortionate. Happy New Year.
