§ Dr. CableTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will list the(a) landing charges for airliners at the main United Kingdom and international airports and (b) changes in Heathrow landing charges since BAA's privatisation. [8467]
§ Mr. JamiesonI have been asked to reply.
My Department does not collect information on airport charges. Comparative information on international airport landing charges is available at BAA's website www.baa.co.uk/pdf/regulation.pdf which shows such information as one of its issues briefs. This ranks airport charges in descending order, and relative to that at Tokyo, for 40 airports. The figures are based on TRL's Index of Charges and the following is a selection from BAA's table.
Comparison of international airport charges TRL index 2000 Airport Rank Index of airport charges Tokyo 1 100 New York—JFK 3 68 Frankfurt 8 41 Paris—CDG 9 41 Amsterdam 11 40 London—Heathrow 21 31 Brussels 25 28 Washington 27 27 Hong Kong 28 27 London—Gatwick 31 23 Los Angeles 39 11 Note:
BAA's commentary states that "Heathrow's charges average a little over £5 per passenger, and those at Gatwick and Stansted average just over £4 per passenger".
There are several elements to airport charges at Heathrow, of which the landing charge is only one. However, dividing the total revenue from airport charges by the total number of passengers to give the average revenue per passenger from airport charges, shows that since privatisation this has risen from £3.64 per passenger (equivalent to £6.00 at current prices) in 1986–87 to £5.23 in 2000–01 at Heathrow. In monetary terms, the change represents an increase of 44 per cent. but, after adjusting for inflation, the average revenue per passenger has fallen by 13 per cent. in real terms over the period.