Airlines face 15.6% rise in Heathrow charges

London's crowded Heathrow airport might be allowed to charge airlines 15.6 per cent more next year, Britain's aviation regulator said yesterday, but in return it wants better service and less queuing at security points.

Airlines reacted angrily to the final proposals from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), which would also allow Heathrow's operator BAA to raise charges by 8.2 per cent at London's second airport, Gatwick.

Heathrow has become a headache for airlines and travellers alike, particularly since security was tightened in August last year when police foiled a plot to bomb transatlantic airliners using liquid explosives.

Queues, delays and lost baggage have become commonplace. The airport's runways are 99 per cent full and its terminals are struggling with 67 million passengers a year, around 40 per cent more than they were designed to handle. "Passengers and airlines deserve better than they have been provided with at Heathrow and Gatwick in recent years, but need to recognise that improvements have to be paid for," said the CAA's director of economic regulation Harry Bush. Airlines said the regulator was rewarding BAA, a division of Spain's Ferrovial, for its failures. The CAA is proposing setting the cap at £11.97 per passenger at Heathrow for 2008/2009 and at £6.07 at Gatwick.

Over the following four years, BAA should be able to raise charges by inflation plus 7.5 per cent at Heathrow and by inflation plus two per cent at Gatwick, it added.

Ferrovial said the price increases were not enough and its BAA unit said: "We do not believe these proposals yet recognise the scale of what is required and the risk involved".