£100 for two minutes at the airport drop-off

You dropped someone at departures, or circled once looking for the right entrance, and weeks later a charge arrived — sometimes three of them from the same trip. Drop-off zones are the one kind of car park where a stop measured in seconds costs the same as a day's overstay, and where the grace period that protects you everywhere else is deliberately switched off. Knowing which zone your charge actually names is the bulk of the job.

Phrases to look for on your letter: “drop off” · “express drop off” · “forecourt” · “unauthorised area” · “no stopping”

Why this is an appealable position

Airport charges usually come from one of three things: entering a drop-off zone without paying its tariff, using a roadway or forecourt where stopping is not permitted at all, or a stay that ran past the paid minutes. The single most useful thing to establish first is which zone the charge names, because the industry's own rulebook treats a short-stay area differently from everything else. The Private Parking Sector Single Code of Practice (version 1.1, in effect 17 February 2025) requires a grace period in addition to the parking period — normally a minimum of 10 minutes under Annex B — but its note to clause 5.2 says that grace period does not apply to short-stay areas of 30 minutes or less, giving airport and railway drop-off and pick-up zones as its example. So a "but I was only two minutes over" argument that wins in a supermarket car park is not available in an express drop-off. What is still available: whether the signage brought the tariff and the zone boundary to your attention before you committed to the lane, whether the times on the operator's own images actually show what it alleges, and — for a keeper who was not driving — whether the notice met the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 conditions at all. There is also a second regime in the background. Airport operators can make byelaws regulating the parking of vehicles under section 63 of the Airports Act 1986, and Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 excludes from "relevant land" any land on which the parking of a vehicle is subject to statutory control — and keeper liability under that Schedule only exists on relevant land. Which regime governs the specific road or zone you were charged on is a question of fact about that site, and not one this page can answer for you: ask the operator to state in writing whether the land is managed under byelaws or under contract, and on whose authority.

The clause to put in the letter

Name the paragraph, not just the rulebook. An operator answering "the Code requires a grace period" can wave it away; an operator answering its own clause number, quoted back at it, has to deal with what the clause says.

Code of Practice v1.1 §5.2 NOTE 2: The grace period does not apply to short stay areas – controlled land where the parking of a vehicle is permissible for a limited period not greater than 30 minutes (Grace period, page 15 of 57; read at source 2026-09-05)

Code of Practice v1.1 §5.3: Parking operators must only pursue parking charges in instances that could be interpreted as stopping if they have explicit consent to do so on evidenced security or safety grounds from their ATA (Prohibition on stopping, page 15 of 57; read at source 2026-09-05)

Your position is strongest when

• The entrance signage did not make the zone, the tariff or the boundary clear before the lane committed you
• The operator's own timestamps do not support the stay it alleges
• Several charges arrived from one visit for what was, on the ground, one continuous manoeuvre
• You were the keeper, not the driver, and the notice's POFA timing or wording is off

Evidence to gather now

• Photographs of the approach and the entrance signs, from the lane you were actually in
• Boarding passes, flight times or texts fixing what you were doing and when
• Every notice from the trip, laid out in time order
• Any tariff receipt or app session for the zone

Your first move

Deal with all the charges from that trip as one story, not one letter each: set out the single visit in order with the times. Appeal as the registered keeper and do not say who was driving. Ask the operator two direct questions in writing — which zone the charge relates to, and whether that land is managed under byelaws or under contract — and ask for the signage images as positioned on your date.

Not sure yet? Check whether you'll lose your discount first — free

Answer 8 questions about what happened and get a ready-to-send appeal letter in minutes. It costs nothing, and you can download it.

The one thing on this site you can pay for is one operator’s full POPLA record, £20 once: three years of that company’s appendix rows, the grounds and the clause of its own rulebook that answers each one, its own published route and your clock. See what is in it, free. You never need it to appeal.

Common questions

Who issued your ticket?

Private operators and councils run entirely different appeal routes. Find your operator to see whether your independent appeal goes to POPLA or the IAS — or read the council PCN route if your letter says “Penalty Charge Notice”.

Still deciding whether it is worth it?

The question underneath this one is usually about money, not law: if I appeal and lose, does it cost me more than paying today? Check whether appealing puts your discount at risk — free, with the rule quoted from the code that applies to your issuer, and the published odds at independent appeal.

Where these rules come from: Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 (keeper liability; the notice deadlines are its paragraphs 8 and 9) · British Parking Association · International Parking Community.

Sources named above: Airports Act 1986, section 63