Heathrow hits back after Virgin Atlantic says airport ‘fleecing’ passengers with ‘disproportionate’ fees
THE EXTRAORDINARY public spat between two of the world’s largest airlines and Heathrow airport moved into another stratosphere yesterday after Virgin Atlantic’s boss said Heathrow was “abusing its monopoly to fleece passengers.”
Both Virgin and BA-owner IAG have hit out at Heathrow after the airport asked the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to allow it to hike pasenger fees, which at larger airports are charged to airlines relative to the number of customers on their planes.
After is finances were hit by the pandemic, Heathrow lobbied the CAA – who set the charges – for fees to go up from £19 per passenger to as high as £43 per passenger.
To mediate between Heathrow and the airlines’ needs, the CAA set an interim cap at £30.19 while waiting until this summer to decide the price for the next five years, a move that left both sides unhappy.
Virgin upped the ante yesterday saying Heathrow is underplaying the strength of the aviation sector’s recovery.
Yesterday the airline’s CEO Shai Weiss said a new airline-commissioned report by WPI Economics, which described the fee increase as “disproportionate,” showed “Heathrow’s desperate attempt to game the process, peddling flawed projections and downplaying the recovery of travel to justify a massive increase in charges.”
BA and Iberia-owner IAG said Heathrow’s forecasts are “deliberately pessimistic” to pursue an “unjustifed” fee hike. “Global Britain needs a competitive hub,” the group’s CEO Luis Gallego said.
Heathrow rejected the report’s conclusions, calling the analysis “so flawed it is embarassing.”
“Airlines appear less interested in giving passengers a reliable journey at the airport and more interested in protecting their profits,” a Heathrow spokesperson said, describing the airlines’ claims as “false accusations.”