UK airport bosses are incensed at a proposed hike in business rates which could add £900 million to the sector’s collective rates bill from April 2026, with an inevitable impact on air fares.
Gatwick Airport chief executive Stewart Wingate hit out at the proposed increase at the Airports UK Conference in London this month, saying: “We’re threatened with an increase of six to seven times the £40 million we pay today [at Gatwick].
“The threatened rates are not acceptable. We need the issue solved. It must be sorted out.”
Birmingham Airport chief executive Nick Barton agreed: “Business rates is a huge issue. We’re looking at a 400% increase.”
Vincent Hodder, chief executive of Leeds Bradford Airport, told the conference: “The only way I can make the airport work is by achieving positive cash flow that could be sucked away by a six-fold increase in business rates.”
The rates increases have been proposed in new valuations submitted to airports by the Valuation Office Agency (VOA), which advises the government and HM Revenue and Customs.
Airports UK chair Baroness Ruby McGregor-Smith said: “We expected a bit of an increase on the £200 million airports pay today. But we’re faced with a £1.1 billion bill. It’s a pressing issue we’re taking to government. These multiples are just unacceptable. We need the Treasury to address this.”
A senior industry source told Travel Weekly: “Airports are engaging about the revaluations for the period from April 2026. There is a process of negotiation, but what we’re looking at so far is a five-fold increase.
“We don’t see how the VOA arrived at these estimates. We don’t know the rationale. There has already been a 30%-40% increase in airport business rates since 2019.”
The business rate valuations from April 2026 are likely to be set as part of next year’s autumn statement by the Chancellor.
If the proposed increases go ahead, “it would mean fewer routes and higher fares,” according to the source.
However, former aviation minister Baroness Vere warned the conference: “I don’t see the government giving you a rebate on business rates.”
The government promised “a fairer business rates system that protects the high street” at the Budget in October and is consulting on “permanently lower multipliers” in setting the rates for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses with a rateable value below £500,000 from 2026.
Larger, non-high street businesses are expected to pay the cost of the rebalancing in rates assessments.