Passenger's fury after being charged £20 to retrieve his laptop from lost and found at Edinburgh Airport

  • Passenger forgot his laptop computer on a flight arriving at the airport 
  • Lost and found service is contracted to a firm called Luggage Point
  • Company charges a fee based on the estimated value of each item 
  • Lost items not claimed within 90 days are 'disposed of accordingly'

Holidaymakers are growing used to being charged fees for almost everything at the airport or on a plane, but one traveller was left outraged after he was forced to pay to recover his laptop.

The man forgot his computer on a flight arriving in Edinburgh and it was turned in to Luggage Point, which is contracted to run the lost and found service at the Scottish capital’s airport.

But the man was charged a £20 fee when he went to retrieve the laptop less than four hours later from the firm’s desk inside the airport.

A passenger says he was charged a £20 fee when he recovered his laptop less than four hours after he lost it

A passenger says he was charged a £20 fee when he recovered his laptop less than four hours after he lost it

The passenger, a teacher, told the Edinburgh Evening News he was shocked that he had to pay a fee and felt as though he was being ‘extorted’.

The man, whose name was not published by the newspaper, said: ‘I just couldn’t believe it. What gives Edinburgh Airport the right to take my property and hand it over to a third-party commercial organisation, who are then going to extort £20 out of me or more to get it back?’

He added: ‘I was so tired, I got the laptop and I walked off, before realising I’d left my driver’s licence on the counter.

‘I went and picked it up, and [an employee] said, “It’s as well you came straight back, if you’d left it here, it would have been £5”.’

MailOnline Travel has contacted Luggage Point for comment.

Luggage Point was established in 2012 and provides lost and found services for airports in Birmingham, Edinburgh and Glasgow. It has been operating at Edinburgh Airport since last October.

Luggage Point’s website states a retrieval fee will be charged for every lost item.

According to the Edinburgh Evening News, the firm’s fees are based on the estimated value of an item.

Luggage Point provides lost and found services for airports in Birmingham, Edinburgh (pictured) and Glasgow

Luggage Point provides lost and found services for airports in Birmingham, Edinburgh (pictured) and Glasgow

‘Small items of clothing’ carry a £5 fee, £10 is charged for suitcases and mobile phones, and the cost to recover laptops and jewellery is £20.

Travellers are charged £2 if they retrieve an item within two hours of it being processed, while large items that are not claimed within 14 days are subject to a storage fee of £10 a day in addition to the standard charge.

Lost items are kept for a maximum of 90 days. After that they are claimed by Luggage Point and ‘disposed of accordingly’, according to the company’s website.

It only deals with items lost in the airport terminal or in the cabin of an aircraft – not luggage lost by an airline.

A search of its online database showed 325 items – from passports and clothing to a pram and a bottle of booze – have been turned in at Edinburgh Airport in the last seven days.

A spokesperson for Edinburgh Airport told MailOnline Travel: 'We work closely with Luggage Point to offer customers an efficient lost property service.

'Items found are stored safely and securely in the airport until we are able to reunite them with their owners.' 

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