Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder. It's Thursday the 17th of July.

This is all about airport drop-off charges and the fact that, well, in the UK, all but one of the top 20 airports now charges people to be dropped off outside the terminal.

And, well, the survey shows that of the top 10 European airports, only one Amsterdam Scipal, has such a charge.

So to find out more about this, let's speak to the man who's done the research,

Rod Dennis of the RAC. Rod, you're very welcome. First of all, what are the headlines from

your survey this year? Well, I think the key thing for drivers to understand in the UK,

anyone leaving in the next few weeks with the busy summer holidays, obviously, quickly creeping up, is that unfortunately more than half of the UK's busiest airports, pretty much all of the biggest ones, actually, have once again put their fees up in one, some form or another this year.

Cardiff, Wales, have started charging for the first time.

They used to be an airport alongside London City that didn't charge. Now London City is the only top 20 airport in the UK that doesn't charge for drop-off since Cardiff have added a £3 fee. And pretty much everywhere else, wherever you're flying off from, if you're dropping friends or family off because they've got too much luggage, they're elderly, they need that assistance.

You're going to have to pay for it sadly.

And we've seen, as I say, generally one pound increases everywhere. It doesn't sound a lot. Take, for instance, Leeds Bradford, okay, only up 50 pence, but you're paying £6.50 in 2024. You're paying £7 for 10 minutes now. and they're joined by a number of other airports,

London Gatwick, Bristol,

Southampton, Stansid,

all charging £7 minimum for something that may be

nothing more than literally popping the boot, opening a car door and saying goodbye to someone.

It does seem like an awful lot of money for people to have to pay. And again, we seem to be in this

cycle of kind of annual increases which, you know, all of us as travellers have to kind

of stomach. And I think it's pretty galling for people, I think. Let me put this from the point

of view of the airports. First of all, you'll, I think, accept that they've all had an absolutely

terrible time during COVID. Lost of fortune, owning an airport ceased to be

a licence to print money, and now they're trying to make good on that. They will also say

a couple of other things. First one is that there's always an alternative where you can drop off

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