Kiss and fly costs

While you may be correct in suggesting in your editorial (30 August) that the tripling of the charge at Edinburgh Airport for dropping off travellers “risks alienating passengers”, you would be wrong to think that the Airport owners Global Infrastructure Partners would be uncomfortable with that.

Surely you remember how it dealt with the widespread outrage when the charge was first introduced. Protests from individuals, businesses and official bodies were simply ignored. And the run-up to a referendum is 
obviously a good time to bury bad news.

The situation for those picking up passengers is already even worse. In this case, you are supposed to use the short-term car park, where the minimum charge (for 15 minutes) is £2.90.

How many people can be sure of arriving at precisely the right time to collect Auntie Flo at arrivals, then get her luggage off the carousel and back to the car in less than 15 minutes?

You are almost certainly going to be into the next charge zone, which will cost you £4.70. And if, as I found the other night, luggage was not scheduled to be at the carousel for a further 20 minutes after landing, you could well find yourself into the next zone (over 30 minutes) where they will happily take you for £5.90.

So why offer to collect Auntie Flo anyway? Let the old bat get a bus, or a taxi. She’ll need the experience because she’s certainly not getting dropped off on the way back. Never mind kiss and fly.

Well, perhaps because taking care of visitors is part of what most people would see as common courtesy – a concept, I suspect, missing from the Global Infrastructure phrasebook.

Ian Taylor

Manse Road

Edinburgh