Heathrow Airport's CEO has slammed a new £10 transit charge as "unnecessary" and one that makes the UK "uncompetitive" to the rest of Europe. The government has forced people entering the UK without a visa, including airline transit passengers, to get a £10 electronic travel authorisation (ETA). Thomas Woldbye says he understands the government wants to control borders, but argues transit passengers "never touch our border". Report by Brooksl. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00 Well, if we talk about ETA, the challenge we have is that this is an issue not just
00:06 for Heathrow Airport, this is an issue for the entirety of the UK. The UK needs good
00:11 connections to the rest of the world, we need an airport that is really, really competitive
00:16 and we need as many connections as we can possibly have. One of the ways we achieve
00:20 that is by having transit passengers, so passengers who are actually not coming in and out of
00:25 the UK but coming maybe from Germany, flying directly on to the USA. That's how we get
00:30 more routes by filling them not only with people from the UK but with people from all
00:34 over the world. When we charge those people an additional £10 to go through the airport
00:39 without getting any additional value for that or without crossing the border, we become
00:44 uncompetitive towards the rest of Europe, who do not do that. We think it's an unnecessary
00:48 charge, why do we charge people who do not use the border? We understand the ETA system
00:52 which is to control the borders, but these people never touch our border, so why do we
00:56 charge them £10? It's unnecessary and it makes us uncompetitive. We have only so far
01:02 seen an effect from Qatar because that's where it has been introduced and we have seen quite
01:07 a dramatic decrease in transfer passengers, also considerably more than we had actually
01:13 expected. Well we want an ETA system that works for people who cross the border and
01:17 then for people who do not cross the border, they should not get involved in that system
01:20 and they shouldn't get charged or they shouldn't register because I think it is as much the
01:26 registration process, which is cumbersome, as much as the money itself actually. Well
01:31 I think the government really has to do very little, they have just not to implement it
01:35 for transit passengers but leave it in place like other European countries do for passengers
01:42 who cross the border.