Parking charges at Manchester Airport have long been criticised by passengers and visitors to the country’s busiest hub outside the capital. On-site fees for dropping off and picking up passengers at terminals are among the highest in the country, including London.
With holidaymakers and their relatives charged for dropping off, parking at the hub for pick-ups and for longer stays too, airport bosses say revenue from parking, which they say is 'competitively priced' - allows them to offer better rates to airlines, which are passed on to passengers in ticket prices. Better rates, they say, also help to attract more routes for travellers.
Of course, passengers can choose the cheaper and greener option of public transport, with a Metrolink ticket from Prestwich to Manchester Airport costing £4.60.
But many, especially those from further afield, choose to travel by car. Long-stay parking is such big business that it’s led to outside firms looking to get in on the action - including some cowboy set-ups exposed by an Manchester Evening News investigation, back in 2016, for leaving cars in fields and pub car parks. Despite a number of council and police crackdowns in the years since, it's a problem that's persisted.
Meanwhile, the prospect of easy money has led private homeowners to rent out their own driveways. This month, we reported on a family who woke up to find a stranger had left a car on their driveway near the hub, and it stayed there for four days.
A scan of the hub sites revealed a week's parking at Manchester Airport from March 21 would set you back £91.99, with 'Drop & Go', the cheapest option on the official website. The multi-stories were more expensive, with a week at T1 costing £130.
Prices were generally cheaper at smaller airports, with the lowest priced official option at Stansted £81.99, East Midlands £85.99, Birmingham Airport, £62.67, Gatwick £59, while Liverpool's John Lennon Airport offered the best deal at £47.99. Only Heathrow - where the cheapest was £128.70 - came in higher than Manchester.
Manchester Airport have said you can get eight days' parking for as little as £58.99 and that prices vary across different hubs depending on proximity, demand and date booked.
The cheapest option for long-stay parking at Manchester would usually be Jetparks, which offers a 15-minute shuttle service to and from the hub. But this was closed during the pandemic. A Manchester Airport spokesman said this was due to 'low passenger numbers' making JetParks 'unnecessary' and cited a plan to reopen in April in line with increasing demand.
A quick glance at the annual reports for Manchester Airports Group (MAG), which owns Manchester, East Midlands and Stansted, shows how central parking is to the business. In the six months to September 30 2021, parking made £40.2m across the three (there’s no published breakdown for individual hubs). That was up from 22.4m in the six months to September 30 2020, at the peak of the pandemic.
During that same time period to September 2021, aviation income amounted to £64.9m while total revenue, including parking and factors like retail and property, came to £158.7m. Parking was more than 25pc of total income - and the biggest slice outside 'aviation'.
Before the pandemic, in the year to March 31 2020, parking made £234.8m for all three airports. That was 26pc of total revenue.
It also highlights just one of the ways the pandemic, which led to plummeting passenger numbers and a raft of redundancies, hit the industry.
Drop-Off
When you look at drop-off fees and short-stay parking for pick-ups for those drivers turning up on the day, starker differences come to light - even between Manchester and its sister airports East Midlands and Stansted.
Although there is a free drop-off option with a five-10 minute shuttle bus to the terminals, on-site drop-offs at Manchester Airport are more expensive than at Heathrow, Birmingham, East Midlands and Liverpool, although Stansted does charge more as an initial fee. Manchester Airport have stressed that their charges are aimed at deterring people from dwelling for any longer than necessary.
At Manchester , passengers are charged £5 for up to five minutes, £6 up to 10 minutes and £25 over 10 minutes.
Heathrow, meanwhile, charges a flat £5.
Gatwick charges £5 for 10 minutes, £1 for each additional minute up to 20 minutes.
Birmingham Airport has a 20-minute free drop-off, but this is a five to ten minute walk away from the terminal. It's 'Premium Set Down', which is comparable with Manchester, is £3 for 15 minutes.
Liverpool is £4 for 10 minutes and up to 20 minutes for £10.
A look at MAG’s other airports shows East Midlands is £5 for up to 15 minutes, and £1 per extra minute, while Stansted charges £7 for up to 15 minutes and £25 after that.
Manchester Airport have pointed out that if people need to stay for longer then they can pay £6 for 30 minutes in a multi-storey, which is cheaper than Liverpool's 20-minute drop-off.
Back in July 2018, the hub axed its free ‘kiss and fly’ drop-off lanes in exchange for a charging system. Drivers were charged £3 for five minutes on the forecourts of the terminals and train station or £4 for a maximum of 10 minutes. An over-stay led to a £25 fine.
At the time, bosses said the fares were aimed at relieving crippling congestion around the site. But that roll-out was controversial, and while some holidaymakers welcomed the move, others slammed it as an extra tax, while one man even ended up in court over a row at the barriers which left a staff member on the bonnet of his car.
Although the driver was banned for 12 months, the judge in the case took the unusual step of also passing judgement on the drop-off fees, branding them 'unjust' and an 'absolute disgrace'. Then the pandemic hit.
And, following a devastating six months for the hub as passenger numbers were savaged by up to 90 per cent, staff pay was cut and more than 2,000 jobs were put at risk across in-house and outside employers. Among a host of other measures, including an end to a final salary pension scheme for staff, bosses looked to parking for a solution, with both drop-off and pick-up prices increased in November 2020.
We asked Manchester Airport why it was more expensive than other hubs.
A Manchester Airport spokesman said: "Like the vast majority of airports in the UK, Manchester charges for access to its forecourts. This was introduced as part of a commitment to reduce the number of vehicles dwelling on our forecourts.
"While we charge drivers who want to drop passengers off as close to the terminal as possible, there are a number of other options available, including a free drop-off facility. Prices are designed to encourage people to drive away from the forecourt as quickly as possible, with other products available to those who want to pay based on the length of time they will be at the airport."
Pick-Up
During the onslaught of Covid, pick-up charges were also increased. In November 2020, a 30-minute stay went from £4.50 to £6; up to an hour from £7 to £12, two hours from £10 to £15 and up to four hours from £18 to £20. And it seems these charges have since been raised again, with two hours now costing £20.
Because these new charges were introduced when passenger numbers were so low, they went largely unnoticed - but as holidaymakers start to venture abroad again it's starting to hit home, not least for Nick Shaw, a dad who was left 'stunned' after forking out £20 for two hours' parking at Terminal 2 last month.
Manchester Airport also has among the steepest charges for parking on-site for pick-ups, even when compared to other hubs run by the same group:
Up to 30 minutes parking:
Manchester: £6
London Stansted: £10 at short-stay but free at mid-stay
Liverpool: £6 (free at a pick-up car park a short walk away).
East Midlands: £6
Heathrow: £5.30 (up to 29 minutes)
Gatwick: £5
Up to one hour parking:
Manchester: £12
London Stansted: £18 at short-stay but mid-stay free
Heathrow: £11.40 (up to 59 minutes)
Liverpool: £10
East Midlands: £8
Gatwick: £8
Up to two hours:
Manchester: £20
London Stansted: £22 at short-stay but £5 at mid-stay
Liverpool: £15
Heathrow: £14.50
Gatwick: £13
East Midlands: £12
Why are costs so high?
Previous parking fee hikes have been blamed on a need to ease congestion and Manchester Airport again referenced this when asked about the prices for this story. However, in November 2020, bosses said, in response to questions why drop-off and pick-up fees had gone up, that it was also about ‘recovery and income’ in challenging times.
A spokesman described the pandemic’s ‘unprecedented impact’ on aviation as passenger numbers plummeted by 90pc, and said action had included ‘reviewing income from car parking, retail and other products’, while keeping flight prices as low as possible in a bid to aid recovery and protect jobs.
In 2020, Greater Manchester’s 10 councils agreed to provide a finance package of more than £250m to MAG. It was aimed at protecting their own long-term investment as well as safeguarding tens of thousands of jobs that rely on it as a major engine of the local economy.
As key shareholders, the 10 Greater Manchester councils had, until 2019, received dividends from MAG, with the 2019 payment of £110m - to the councils (who own 64.5pc) and firm IFM - being the last one before the pandemic hit. At the time, one official said the authorities effectively had ‘no choice’ but to protect their asset.
Meanwhile, in an interview with BBC Radio Manchester earlier this year, Neil Emmott, leader of Rochdale council, said the 10 councils had been warned they might not receive any dividend from their ownership of the airport group until 2027 because of Covid. Describing the warning as a ‘serious blow’ as the payment had been a ‘lifeline’, Mr Emmott said he had been informed that the council would not receive a dividend ‘for at least another four or five years because of the Covid pandemic’.
"It has always been that lifeline that comes in and often helps us out. But obviously due to the pandemic the airport has not been in a position to do that," he said. "We're going to be hit pretty heavily on that score for the next couple of years."
This week, the Manchester Evening News asked Manchester City Council for a comment on the lost dividend. A spokesman said: "We know the airport is beginning to recover from the impacts of Covid and that Manchester Airports Group will resume paying dividends as soon as it is appropriate to do so.
"Our medium term financial plan, which takes us up to 2024/25, does not assume the return of the dividend in this period and we are using our resources prudently to help us manage the period until the dividend resumes."
On the dividend, a Manchester Airport spokesman said the coronavirus pandemic had 'hit aviation harder than any other sector over the last two years'.
He added: "We have always been confident in the underlying strength of our business and, following the removal of most UK travel restrictions, are planning for a robust recovery of international travel in the weeks and months ahead. All three of MAG’s airports are seeing airlines resume services to a wide range of destinations, with passenger demand also recovering well.
“The nature and speed of aviation’s recovery will depend on several factors, such as consumer confidence and any future restrictions that may be imposed by UK or overseas governments. We discuss these factors with our shareholders on a regular basis and we intend to return to paying dividends again at the earliest opportunity.”
So all streams of revenue are vital to the recovery of Manchester Airport as the sector emerges from the pandemic. Andy Ashton, Unite convenor at Manchester Airport, whose role means balancing the needs of the hub with those of employees, argues that parking fees are vital in the absence of sufficient Goverment support.
He said: "We are coming out of a pandemic and with the revenue the airport has lost, they have to re-jig costs accordingly to regenerate and I'm supportive of anything that can bring staff back in. We need to generate income, we need support from Government, there were supposed to be packages of support but that was just furlough.
"Our sector was the first to suffer and we are the last ones to recover. From a Unite perspective our lobbying has fallen on deaf ears. The Government has negated their responsibility to aid our recovery and I think it's right that the airport is having to get more money from parking.
"Pre-covid the airport was investing in improving airport infrastructure, with Terminal 2, that money is committed and they can't leave T2 half finished. In the mists of a pandemic with restrictions changing it was hard to plan a recovery but I understand that Manchester Airport are now trying to seek revenue where they can."
However, in the words of another colleague who asked not to be named: “It’s a tricky one because we have lost a lot of money but more expensive passenger parking means they might decide to go to other airports.”
Manchester Airport also say:
"We have a wide choice of ground transport options available to suit every budget, including road, rail, tram, bus and coach. We also have a free drop-off option for passengers who do not need to leave a car while they are away.
"There are a variety of car parking products on offer to customers, and we always advise people to book in advance to get the best deal. For example, eight days of pre-booked parking in several of our car parks would work out at approximately 30p per hour.
“Every airport in the UK generates income from travel products and services such as car parking and lounges. This diversity provides greater resilience and financial security for the airport and its employees, but importantly it also offers choice to our customers. Customers can choose from a range of competitive price points for parking, lounges and other products, with free options often available as well.
“In turn, the revenue from these services allows us to offer competitive aeronautical charges to our airlines. This directly reduces ticket prices for our customers and makes it more viable for airlines to put on new routes, providing more choice of destination for our passengers.
“Furthermore, all of our parking prices are advertised online and onsite, ensuring people can make informed choices to suit their budget and travel needs.”
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