Another money grab that is not well thought through.

This will inevitably lead to people trying to circumnavigate the forecourt like Uber drivers try to pick people up. This happened to me earlier this month although I was still charged the £5 pick up fee. There was nobody policing the forecourt and the drivers know this.

I would not really object to this if the income was used to improve transport around the airport.

• The previously free bus network is now chargeable.
• The Hoppa buses are not fit to transport cattle and many drivers lack driving ability, empathy and customer service skills.
• The pods, which at the beginning were touted as being expanded across all terminals and around the airport would be a solution but LHR prefer to use buses from the long stay car park rather than use the pods (which in itself makes a mockery of their environmental commitments).
• Public transport from anywhere but London is a trauma in itself. Getting to Kings Cross is simple enough if you do not have much luggage but then is the choice of a slow hot death on the Piccadilly line or daylight robbery on the Heathrow express
• When it opens Crossrail is no better with poor frequency and the need to get from Kings Cross to Tottenham court road. Anyone arriving into Kings Cross or Euston (so anyone from the North) has poor access to Crossrail

Given the location, Heathrow should have a mainline rail station making it accessible by rail without having to travel into London. If anyone in government had a vision, that would be the future. But that is wishful thinking. And Heathrow is not alone. A friend in Scotland takes the train to Edinburgh airport from Dundee. A train that rides past the airport into the city centre for him to have to take a bus / tram back to where he had been an hour previously. He also flies solely KLM, partly because Heathrow collapses when the weather hiccups and partly because KLM / Schipol know how to facilitate connections with frequency and ease.