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A €15 charge for hire cars collected from mainland Portuguese airport car parks will be levied from March, warns Economy Car Hire.
The Portuguese Airport Authority (ANA) will be enforcing the charge from 1st March 2015.
At present the charge will only apply to mainland Portuguese airports including Lisbon, Oporto and Faro. However, it is understood the ANA are also considering applying the charge to rental cars collected from airport car parks in Madeira and the Azores.
At Faro Airport the majority of holiday car hire suppliers work from the airport’s Car Park 4, with around 80% of all cars rented in the Algarve area collected from there.
Economy Car Hire managing director, Rory Sexton, said: “Holidaymakers have recently been landed with a new toll charge for using the A22 to cross the Algarve and now many will have another €15 snatched from them by Portuguese airports.
“Portugal relies heavily on tourism to prop up its ailing economy, and if they want to encourage more Brits to travel there this summer they’ve got a funny way of showing it.
“Portugal is a fabulous place to visit, but if it starts to get a reputation for squeezing tourists for their euros before they’ve even got out of the airport car park, holidaymakers will simply go elsewhere.”