Edinburgh Airport to bring in new flat-fee for pick-ups and drop-offs as bosses respond to ‘drastic’ Covid impact - here are the changes

Edinburgh Airport will bring in a flat-fee for its drop-off and pick-up areas next month as bosses respond to the financial challenges of the coronavirus pandemic which could mean losses of £60 million this year.

A £4 charge will be introduced which means those picking up passengers within 15 minutes will pay £1 less and those dropping off within the five minute window will pay £2 more, from November 9.

However, the time allowed for dropping off will be doubled from five to 10 minutes.

Edinburgh Airport will also be opening a new £7 million East Terminus facility in November to provide a dedicated area for taxis and private hire cars.

Edinburgh Airport.

A £2 discount for people with electric cars and a discount scheme for people living locally will also be introduced, details of which will be published online ahead of the changes.

The airport’s free drop-off zone will be retained - moving temporarily from long to mid stay - for passengers willing to take a shuttle bus service there to be collected.

A spokesperson for Edinburgh Airport said customer feedback has been a factor in the changes but stressed the pandemic has also influenced the move, given the “extremely challenging” business conditions presented.

It recently emerged that air passenger numbers were down 91 percent compared to last year in Edinburgh and these are not expected to recover to 2022 at the earliest.

The changes are designed to boost revenue and help the airport stay competitive.

Gordon Dewar, chief executive of Edinburgh Airport, said user feedback was important in the changes but added: “We can’t deny that the drastic impact of Covid-19 has also forced our hand on the pricing change.

“We are 91 percent down on passenger numbers, with less routes and airlines operating, and we’re having to operate with a quarantine policy that is a travel ban in all but name. All of that drastically impacts on finances and right now we stand to lose £60 million in 2020, which makes it incredibly difficult for us to remain competitive and attract back those airlines and routes in the coming months unless we increase revenue to survive a very bleak winter.

“More importantly, we don’t want to lose more staff – we want to preserve as many jobs as possible. We’ve already had to say goodbye to a third of our workforce through no fault of their own and we’ve done that to right-size the airport, but forecasting future passenger numbers is almost impossible at the moment so we don’t quite know what size that’ll be. To make sure we are ready to recover then we have to have a staff base that allows us to do so.”

Mr Dewar added that the new £7 million East Terminus facility will make access easier as part of a wider project that will include a second access road.

He said this project is partly made possible by drop-off and pick-up charges.

Last week, Edinburgh Airport revealed 785,000 people passed through the airport between April and September, down from 8.4 million in 2019.

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