Business
Blue badge holders should not pay airport drop-off fees, charity says
Business reporter, BBC News
Getty ImagesAll UK airports should stop charging blue badge holders for being dropped off close to terminals, a disability charity has said.
Several people with blue badges got in touch with the BBC following news that more than half of the busiest airports had raised the so-called “kiss-and-fly” fees to as high as £7 in some cases.
Many airports already offer discounts or waive the fee for disabled drivers, but blue badge holders say the system is complex and inconsistent.
Graham Footer, chief executive of Disabled Motoring UK, said some airports have “allowed greed to cloud their judgement”, and argues people with disabilities should not have to pay the charge at all.
“Disabled customers deserve to be treated with respect and dignity and not fleeced as soon as they arrive,” he said.
Free drop offs
The BBC contacted the 20 busiest airports in the UK to confirm their policy on drop-off charges for blue badge holders.
London City does not charge drop-off fees for any kind of passenger.
Gatwick, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Heathrow, Liverpool John Lennon and Manchester all charge a drop-off fee, but blue badge holders do not have to pay it.
Luton, Glasgow, Belfast International, Belfast City, East Midlands, Aberdeen, and Southampton all charge blue badge holders the same as other passengers for using the drop-off spaces closest to the airport. But they also all offer separate free drop-off parking specifically for blue badge holders elsewhere.
For Glasgow and Aberdeen, this parking is only free if blue badge holders are being dropped off by family or friends – not if they are dropped off by taxi.
All airports offer free drop-off options further from the terminals for all passengers – not just blue badge holders – such as “park and ride” facilities where people can leave their car and take a bus to the airport.
Bristol, Leeds Bradford, and Bournemouth all charge blue badge holders for drop off but allow them to stay for longer than other passengers at a lower fee.
Bristol charges £7 for 40 minutes, Leeds Bradford charges £7 for 60 minutes, and Bournemouth charges £5 for four hours because it said disabled passengers “may require more time”.
Only Cardiff, Newcastle, and Stansted charge the same fee with no discount at all.
Cardiff charges £3 for 10 minutes, Newcastle charges £5 for 10 minutes, and Stansted charges £7 for 15 minutes.
Airports UK, which represents the industry, said that the best accessible drop-off for blue badge holders depends on the layout of the airport.
“No one option is ideal at all airports, so to optimise access at each airport the offer will necessarily be different,” it said.
It advised passengers to check the airport’s website before travelling to identify the best drop-off location.
‘You have to jump through hoops’
Most of the airports that waive drop-off fees do so if a disabled driver shows their blue badge at the airport on the day.
However, for Heathrow and Liverpool, the exemption needs to be claimed online or on the phone either before or after travelling. Heathrow says its online process for confirming blue badges can take five days to complete, though it told the BBC it usually takes 48 hours.
James Williams, 67, from London finds these services difficult to use.
“I am a blue badge holder and I have to pay because I am not computer literate,” he says, arguing that “you have to jump through hoops to get this discount”.
James WilliamsJonathan Cassar, 51, from London says the complex nature of online registration means that “disabled people who need to be dropped at terminal cannot be spontaneous as others can”.
Heathrow said it had tried to make the blue badge registration process “as simple as possible” and advised anyone who needs registration urgently to get it approved over the phone.
Liverpool said it had introduced online confirmation “to minimise abuse of the blue badge system”.
‘Not against principle’
Not all blue badge holders feel being charged for airport drop off is unfair.
Gordon Richardson, chair of the British Polio Fellowship Board, is a blue badge holder but says he is “not against the principle” of disabled people paying the same as non-disabled people.
He says what is most important is that the space is accessible and easy to use.
He urges blue badge holders to contact airports before travelling so that the airports can have the staff ready to help them and ensure they get their discount or free parking.
Many of the airports the BBC contacted said their blue badge policies had been drafted in consultation with disability groups and with special consideration for their needs.
Business
Stock Market Live Updates: Sensex, Nifty Hit Record Highs; Bank Nifty Climbs 60,000 For The First Time
Stock Market News Live Updates: Indian equity benchmarks opened with a strong gap-up on Monday, December 1, touching fresh record highs, buoyed by a sharp acceleration in Q2FY26 GDP growth to a six-quarter peak of 8.2%. Positive cues from Asian markets further lifted investor sentiment.
The BSE Sensex was trading at 85,994, up 288 points or 0.34%, after touching an all-time high of 86,159 in early deals. The Nifty 50 stood at 26,290, higher by 87 points or 0.33%, after scaling a record intraday high of 26,325.8.
Broader markets also saw gains, with the Midcap index rising 0.27% and the Smallcap index advancing 0.52%.
On the sectoral front, the Nifty Bank hit a historic milestone by crossing the 60,000 mark for the first time, gaining 0.4% to touch a fresh peak of 60,114.05.
Meanwhile, the Metal and PSU Bank indices climbed 0.8% each in early trade.
Global cues
Asia-Pacific markets were mostly lower on Monday as traders assessed fresh Chinese manufacturing data and increasingly priced in the likelihood of a US Federal Reserve rate cut later this month.
According to the CME FedWatch Tool, markets are now assigning an 87.4 per cent probability to a rate cut at the Fed’s December 10 meeting.
China’s factory activity unexpectedly slipped back into contraction in November, with the RatingDog China General Manufacturing PMI by S&P Global easing to 49.9, below expectations of 50.5, as weak domestic demand persisted.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 slipped 1.6 per cent, while the broader Topix declined 0.86 per cent. In South Korea, the Kospi dropped 0.30 per cent and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was down 0.31 per cent.
US stock futures were steady in early Asian trade after a positive week on Wall Street. On Friday, in a shortened post-Thanksgiving session, the Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.65 per cent to 23,365.69, its fifth consecutive day of gains.
The S&P 500 rose 0.54 per cent to 6,849.09, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 289.30 points, or 0.61 per cent, to close at 47,716.42.
Osmond ChiaBusiness reporter
Getty ImagesSouth Korea’s largest online retailer, Coupang, has apologised for a massive data breach potentially involving nearly 34 million local customer accounts.
The country’s internet authority said that it is investigating the breach and that details from the millions of accounts have likely been exposed.
Coupang is often described as South Korea’s equivalent of Amazon.com. The breach marks the latest in a series of data leaks at major firms in the country, including its telecommunications giant, SK Telecom.
Coupang told the BBC it became aware of the unauthorised access of personal data of about 4,500 customer accounts on 18 November and immediately reported it to the authorities.
But later checks found that some 33.7 million customer accounts – all in South Korea – were likely exposed, said Coupang, adding that the breach is believed to have begun as early as June through a server based overseas.
The exposed data is limited to name, email address, phone number, shipping address and some order histories, Coupang said.
No credit card information or login credentials were leaked. Those details remain securely protected and no action is required from Coupang users at this point, the firm added.
The number of accounts affected by the incident represents more than half of South Korea’s roughly-52 million population.
Coupang, which is founded in South Korea and headquartered in the US, said recently that it had nearly 25 million active users.
Coupang apologised to its customers and warned them to stay alert to scams impersonating the company.
The firm did not give details on who is behind the breach.
South Korean media outlets reported on Sunday that a former Coupang employee from China was suspected of being behind the breach.
The authorities are assessing the scale of the breach as well as whether Coupang had broken any data protection safety rules, South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT said in a statement.
“As the breach involves the contact details and addresses of a large number of citizens, the Commission plans to conduct a swift investigation and impose strict sanctions if it finds a violation of the duty to implement safety measures under the Protection Act.”
The incident marks the latest in a series of breaches affecting major South Korean companies this year, despite the country’s reputation for stringent data privacy rules.
SK Telecom, South Korea’s largest mobile operator, was fined nearly $100m (£76m) over a data breach involving more than 20 million subscribers.
In September, Lotte Cards also said the data of nearly three million customers was leaked after a cyber-attack on the credit card firm.
Agency workers hired to cover Birmingham bin strikers will join them on picket lines on Monday, a union has said.
A rally will be held by Unite The Union at Smithfield Depot on Pershore Street, Birmingham, on Monday morning to mark the first day of strike action by agency refuse workers.
Unite said the Job & Talent agency workers had voted in favour of strike action “over bullying, harassment and the threat of blacklisting at the council’s refuse department two weeks ago”.
The union said the number of agency workers who will join the strike action is “growing daily”.
Strikes by directly-employed bin workers, which have been running since January, could continue beyond May’s local elections.
The directly-employed bin workers voted in favour of extending their industrial action mandate earlier this month.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Birmingham council will only resolve this dispute when it stops the appalling treatment of its workforce.
“Agency workers have now joined with directly-employed staff to stand up against the massive injustices done to them.
“Instead of wasting millions more of council taxpayers’ money fighting a dispute it could settle justly for a fraction of the cost, the council needs to return to talks with Unite and put forward a fair deal for all bin workers.
“Strikes will not end until it does.”
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