Parking charges at airport

13Aug10

A WORD of warning to your readers who might be going to Gatwick Airport to collect visitors.

On Tuesday I decided to do a drive through the ‘pick up only’ area at Gatwick Airport to see if my guest was waiting for me.

She was not, so I exited the car park. Drive through time less than one minute – to be honest less than 30 seconds

On going around the block, my friend phoned to say she was now in the ‘pick up only’ area, so I drove into the ‘pick up only’ gatwick airport park to collect her… this took less than two minutes.

I put my ticket in the exit machine expecting the barrier to go straight up as I knew I had 10 minutes free time; to my amazement I was being charged £3.

I buzzed the intercom and was told somebody might be able to come and help me with my query.

Finally someone did turn up and told me the charge was correct as I had been through before (number plate recognition) and although the gentleman could not explain why if I had only been there in total for less than three minutes that I should be charged, he did agree he thought £1 a minute was excessive and unfair but there was nothing he could do about it.