Airport to charge £1 for plastic hand luggage bags
14.10.07
Norwich Airport has been urged to scrap plans to charge passengers £1 for plastic bags to carry liquids through security, the Eastern Daily Press reports. The airport has installed vending machines that passengers who do not have the bags must use to purchase them to carry gels and liquids in their hand luggage.
The plastic bags are given away free at most UK airports, but passengers who arrive at Norwich Airport check-in without their own have to buy a £1 capsule containing 4 bags - even though only 1 per person may be taken onto the aircraft. The newspaper reports that similar bags from a supermarket cost £1.06 for 35, or 3p each. At 25p each, the airport's bags work out 733% more expensive.
The airport's managing director, Richard Jenner, said the machines were introduced when it became clear that the increased security measures introduced last November were here to stay. He said: 'We are selling plastic bags at the airport. If passengers have got liquids but have not got a bag, they can buy them from a machine.'
'You can use your own, but we have got them in the terminal just in case at the last minute somebody finds they haven't got one. It's really just an extra service.'
The move comes on top of a controversial £3 'departure tax', introduced in April to help fund an £18m improvement of the airport. Luton Airport recently introduced the scheme too. At Exeter Airport passengers can buy an individual bag for 20p.
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