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Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Calder, and today I am looking at drop-off rip-offs.

Well, that's what some motorists will feel with record increases in the cost of dropping somebody off, kissing them goodbye, and they go off and getting a flight at one of Britain's

airports. And I'm at the second busiest of Britain's airports, London Gatwick, in my kind of happy

place. I was born just a mile or so away from here, just down the road, and I've been, it's all been

part of my life ever since.

But I managed to avoid the five pound charge,

which was brought in two years ago as the airport was coming out of the COVID pandemic,

by very simply catching a train here.

It costs £13 from London, but certainly, well, I don't have a car,

so that would have been quite tricky anyway.

But I would always use Gatwick Airport.

And indeed the airport says one reason we're charging this money

is to encourage people to travel more sustainably.

Come and have a look at our brand new railway

station which is taking shape and actually Gatwick airport was established here directly above the

main London Brighton railway line because of its excellent connectivity anyway let me take you back through the history of these things.

The earliest fee I can find was actually at Birmingham Airport,

...