HEATHROW STAFF HIT WITH NEW TRAVEL COSTS

On the evening of Friday 18th December, I was changing buses at Heathrow Central Bus Station – heading home on a U3 to West Drayton.

Eleven Heathrow staff boarded the bus at the same time as me, but all alighted at the Pinglestone Close bus stop, north of Heathrow on Bath Road. They all walked into the staff car park, no doubt to get their car and go home after their shift.

Whilst I paid for my journey, heading slightly further afield, the Heathrow staff did not as their journey was entirely within the Heathrow Free Travel Zone, which allows for free-flowing travel on dozens of local bus services that serve the airport and its surrounding roads – the scheme includes airport passengers, local residents and Heathrow staff.

From 1st January 2021, Heathrow will begin abolishing the Heathrow Free Travel Zone, meaning that full fares apply – £1.50 for a single journey on Transport for London routes – £3 per day for those staff members on my bus. The whole FTZ will be abolished ‘later in 2021’, according to Heathrow.

In mid-November, Heathrow withdrew sales of the Heathrow Travelcard – another staff discount scheme from a range of destinations in counties near to Heathrow, as well as slightly further afield. Staff travel on the airport’s premium Heathrow Express rail service will end on 30 June 2021.

The abolition of these schemes means staff will have to fork out on additional travel costs where they did not previously. Is it right that hard-pressed Heathrow staff should be forced into coughing up this extra cash just to get to work? This, of course, is in addition to the ‘fire and rehire’ schemes where staff will experience a significant reduction in pay and conditions. After what has been an unprecedented bad year, is this really what staff deserve as we enter 2021?

Meanwhile, Heathrow announced it would be introducing a vehicle access charge for those entering the terminal areas. The airport will be consulting on the precise arrangements in the near future. The new levy could entice more passengers to make their journey on public transport, which would be to the benefit of the local environment and air quality – something Heathrow claims it is committed to.

Heathrow should put its money where its mouth is and use the funds generated by this new charge to reinstate funding for the public transport schemes it is abolishing.

Stop Heathrow Expansion is campaigning to get less staff using cars to get to work and onto public transport for their entire journey, thus cleaning up our poor local air quality in areas around the airport. So, it seems a backward step to force staff to cough up extra cash to use public transport when the airport still wishes to disincentivise car use, as it must.

Robert Barnstone

Campaign Coordinator, Stop Heathrow Expansion

This piece was originally published on the Heathrow Workers Power blog on 30 December 2020.