The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has capped London Heathrow’s landing fees at £23.73 per passenger in 2025 and £23.71 per passenger in 2026. The new charges are a 6% decrease on the cap decision announced in March last year.
The CAA said that this decision was taken to address the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) determination on the H7 licence modification appeals from Heathrow Airport and airlines in April 2023.
The CAA said that the changes reflect a smaller reduction in charges for the over recovery of revenue by Heathrow in 2020 and 2021; the elimination of the premium that had been allowed on indexed linked debt in calculating Heathrow’s cost of capital; and changes to ensure that Heathrow’s charges reflect the costs of pension deficit repair payments and business rates.
Heathrow has not commented on the decision. Although the airport has reported encouraging figures for June 2024, with some 7.4 million people travelling through the airport and its busiest day ever on June 30 serving over 268,000 passengers.
For the first time in Heathrow history, the airport declared that June “saw back-to-back days of more than 260,000 passengers a day and a record 5 days over 260,000 passengers”.
“June has seen more Heathrow records shattered including serving more passengers in a single day than ever before,” said Heathrow CEO Thomas Woldbye. “I want to thank all my colleagues who went the extra mile to make sure the 268,000 passengers travelling on the busiest day had a smooth, stress-free journey. I am thrilled these efforts have been recognised by ACI Europe, highly commending Heathrow in the recent Best Airport awards. We have started summer as we mean to go on.”
Commenting on the announcement, Mignon Buckingham, CEO of Airport Dimensions, said that although it was “promising” to see the numbers of passengers passing through key UK airports such as Luton and Heathrow remaining high in 2024, he warned that although “global travel looks set for further growth over the next 12 months by 8% YoY - however, passenger satisfaction levels have fallen by 2%”, adding that “airports must be careful to balance growing passenger numbers with the quality of the experience provided to those passengers”.
CAA lowers landing fee cap for LHR
