Irish Examiner View: Curb your enthusiasm for lack of Dublin Airport drop-off charges

Drop-off charges at UK airports (up to €10 for 15 minutes) are hugely unpopular.

Passengers arrive at Dublin Airport. Picture: Damien Storan/PA Wire

We can give one cheer for the denial from daa (formerly the Dublin Airport Authority) that it does not want to introduce drop-off/pick-up charges for people taking friends and relatives for their flights and stopping in their cars for a couple of minutes. 

And then curb our enthusiasm when we see that the official statement says it has no “current” plans. 

This, as we all know, is corporate and political argot which means "they’re coming, but not yet".

Travellers to UK airports such as Stansted and Heathrow will be aware that such levies are applied there (up to €10 for 15 minutes with costs increasing rapidly if that limit is exceeded) and also that these charges are hugely unpopular, being seen as yet another opportunity to rip off the customer. 

This, however, may not be quite the moment for their implementation at the Republic’s main airport which is currently fighting a High Court battle to more or less double its passenger charges. If it gets its way, this is a cost which airlines will almost certainly pass on to consumers.

We know that airports had a hard time with covid, because we have helped them with tax support and suffered from their disruptions to service. But attempts to claw back their covid losses in short order from customers is unlikely to improve the popularity standing of daa.