HAVING just returned from Southampton Airport, where we dropped off our son for his flight to Belfast, I must say how impressed I was with the drop-off facilities. There are a number of dedicated spaces where one can park for up to 10 minutes to drop off passengers, and apart from being free of charge they are also under cover and just about as close to the terminal building as it is possible to be. How welcoming and passenger-friendly this facility is.

Contrast this with Bournemouth Airport, where a £2.50 charge is imposed even when stopping off for only a few minutes, and one then has to walk across the car park, across the road and along to the terminal entrance, all in the open air and, quite likely, in the rain.

When we flew from Bournemouth last November, our car journey past the airport itself and into the car park, was impeded by cars stopped off on the side of the road by drivers not prepared to pay the fee. I do not blame these people at all as the fee is extortionate and, far from welcoming passengers, it is off-putting and a classic example of how the powers that be at Bournemouth Airport are attempting to claw back from the public the costs of its long-overdue improvements.

CAROL COLWELL, Merrifield Avenue, Broadstone