UAE to start charging airport service fee

Airport passengers leaving the UAE will be charged a service fee of five dirhams, UAE daily Gulf News reported on Monday.

The additional fee will come into force on July 29, 2011, and will be built into the ticket price, but will not be applicable to transit passengers, the report added.

“This is a service fee, which is related to safety and security of passengers and travelling public out of UAE airports,” the paper quoted General Civil Aviation Authority’s (GCAA) Director General Saif Mohammad al-Suwaidi as saying.

“The decision will be implemented by the UAE Government and has been issued by His Highness Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai,” the paper cited a GCAA spokesperson as saying.

Passenger volumes at Dubai International Airport are set to exceed 75 million by 2015, according to a statement from Dubai Airports.

Around 3.97 million passengers passed through the world’s fourth busiest airport for international passenger traffic in May, compared with 3.65 million passengers during the same month in 2010.

Yahoo! Maktoob