Journalist Harry Wallop went undercover to investigate just how London Heathrow and other UK airports make their money in this week’s channel 4 show – Dispatches: Inside Britain’s Airports.
Britain’s three largest airports make more than £4 billion each year, but almost half of that does not come from flights.
Majority of airports’ profits come from passengers spending money in the shops, restaurants and bureau de change.
Harry revealed that according to figures released by Heathrow last week, retail revenues are growing much faster than aviation revenues – in fact it is up by seven per cent.
Buying alcohol at World Duty Free – the largest airport retailer – has long been a holiday staple.
But since 1999, travellers have not been able to stock up on bottles of cheap booze and cigarettes if they are travelling within the EU.
However, you can still get alcohol VAT and duty free if you travelling outside the EU.
But exactly how duty-free is it really, questioned Harry.
Footage, filmed secretly, showed the reporter buying a one litre bottle of Jameson whiskey from Heathrow.
The price was labelled on the shelf as £18.59, however, when he reached the till and the cashier’s discovered he was flying to Manchester, the price shot up to £28.49.
The World Duty Free staff member explained to Harry that there is a small label on the shelf saying the £18.59 price is “only for passengers travelling outside the EU”. As he was only flying to Manchester he would have to pay VAT and duty.
But Harry was not convinced that even the duty free price was completely free of both taxes.
He went on to explain that if you take VAT – 20 per cent – and the duty (£11.06), which is a set price determined by the alcohol in the bottle off the £28.49 figure, you only get £12.68.
When he put this to World Duty Free, the retailer said that their calculations is based on the original price of £38.58.
Harry admitted he was left a little confused as to where this price actually comes from as according to the retailer themselves, the average high street price of a Jameson whiskey (1 litre) is £31.01.
A spokesperson for World Duty Free told the channel 4 show: “Our customers benefit from VAT and duty free savings on thousands of products in our airport stores, which are clearly labelled.
“Last year we had 20 million customers and only 0.00001 per cent complained about labelling of any sort to our customer services team.”
The story comes after Express.co.uk revealed this simple trick to cut lengthy queues at airport security.
