How we check every figure

The short version

What we track

For each airport we record the charge for stopping at the drop-off zone nearest the terminal (the "kiss and fly" fee), the minutes it buys, what a longer stay costs, how and when you pay, the rules for picking someone up, the free or cheaper alternative the airport offers, and its Blue Badge terms. The 29 airports run from Heathrow to City of Derry; the full list is on the homepage.

Where the figures come from

• The airport's own website. 28 of 29 airports are marked official: the figures were confirmed on the airport's own pages on the date shown. Open any airport's row in the table on the homepage and you'll find a link to the official page, so you can check it yourself.
• Published comparisons, as a labelled fallback. Where a charge can't be confirmed on the airport's own site, it is checked against two or more recent published comparisons, marked secondary and queued for a direct check. That currently applies to:
  • Humberside: Confirmed against two recent published comparisons; the airport's own site couldn't be machine-read, so an official re-check is queued.
• News reports are a prompt to check, not a source. When the press reports a new charge, we go to the airport's own page before changing anything. The exception is history: what a charge used to be sometimes comes from press reports of an airport's past announcements, and the log entry links the report.
• Background details that aren't charges, such as a rail link or a piece of airport history, come from the source linked beside them, which isn't always the airport.

How a figure is checked

1. Read the airport's page. The charge is copied with the wording around it: the amount, the time it covers and any conditions.
2. Record it once. The figure goes into a single data file with the date and the address of the page it came from.
3. Rebuild everything from that file. The airport's page, the comparison table, the guides and the downloads are all generated from it, so they can't disagree with each other.
4. Log the change. A new or changed charge gets a dated entry in the public log, with a link to the source.
5. Publish by hand. Nothing goes live automatically. Rick, who runs the site, reviews each update and publishes it himself.

AI assistance. Reading the airports' pages, pulling out the figures and drafting the text is done with AI assistance, under the rules on this page: every figure must come from the airport's own wording, a gap is never filled with an estimate, and where two official pages disagree the page says so or leaves the detail out.

What the dates mean

Verified

On an airport's page: the day that airport's figures were last checked against its source.

Last updated

On the homepage: the most recent change anywhere in the data. Currently 2 Oct 2026.

Last full review

The last time all 29 airports were checked in one sweep: 25 Aug 2026.

Right now 25 of the 29 airports carry the 25 Aug 2026 date. 4 have been re-checked since: London Luton (2 Oct 2026), Newcastle (2 Oct 2026), East Midlands (29 Sep 2026) and Liverpool John Lennon (5 Sep 2026).

Keeping it current

• Every quarter all 29 airports are re-checked against their own pages. The next full check is due in November 2026: see coming next.
• Every day an automated scan of news and airport announcements looks for fee changes. Anything it finds is checked on the airport's own page before the data changes.
• When someone tells us. Readers, journalists and airports can report a change or a mistake, and it is checked the same way.

Airports can change a charge without notice, so a figure can go out of date between checks. The date beside it tells you how old it is. Confirm with the airport before you travel.

Corrections

Spotted an error? Email hello@airportdropoffcharges.co.uk with the airport and, if you can, a link to the airport's page. We check it against the official source, fix the data and add a dated entry marked "Correction" to the log, so a fix is never made quietly. The log has 14 entries since 6 Jan 2026: 9 fee rises and new charges, 4 corrections and 1 full review.

Parking guides: the extra rules

The in-depth parking guides (Glasgow, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Aberdeen and Exeter) follow everything above, plus rules of their own.

• Only the airport's own prices. Every price is the airport's published turn-up price, checked on its website and dated on the page.
• Worked examples are calculated, not estimated. A week parked or a lift both ways is worked out from those published prices. The page will not build if any pound figure on it can't be traced back to the checked data.
• Partner prices are linked, never quoted. Prices from parking companies and booking sites change daily, so the guides send you to the live price.
• When official pages disagree, we don't pick the one that suits. The detail is left out, given as approximate, or the more cautious figure is used. When we checked Edinburgh Airport on 30 Sep 2026, two of its pages gave different frequencies for the same shuttle bus (every 12 and every 18 minutes), so our guide gives the journey time and leaves the frequency out.
• A second read before publishing. Before a new guide goes live, every claim on it is re-read against its source in a separate pass.
• They aren't reviews. The guides report what airports and operators publish, not our own experience of the car parks, lounges or services.

How the site is funded

Some links to parking and travel services are affiliate links: if you book after clicking one, the company may pay us a commission, at no extra cost to you. They are labelled where they appear, and currently go to Holiday Extras, Airparks, YourParkingSpace and Birmingham Airport's own car parks. Commission has no say in the data. Charges come only from the airports' published prices, and no airport or parking company pays to be listed, ranked or described.

Open data

The whole dataset is free to reuse under CC BY 4.0. The data page has the files, every field explained and how to credit it. Who runs the site is on the about page.