“This can represent a significant expense, as in some instances fuel surcharges are now higher than the airlines’ base fares.”
Turner quotes the example of a return low season Qantas fare to London being promoted by Flight Centre that is priced from $1809 from Sydney.
The price includes a $760 fuel surcharge, a $728 base fare and $321 in taxes. “In this instance, the actual base fare only represents 40 per cent of the ticket price,” Turner points out.
In fact, breaking the fare down into fake components is a cheap trick designed to blame the airline’s operating costs on suppliers. Many of the “taxes”, for instance, aren’t government charges at all, but airport levies – which in Australia at least tend to be very high.
According to Turner, Air New Zealand does not apply a fuel surcharge and Emirates has a relatively small fee, but many other carriers are charging travellers hundreds of dollars in extra charges.
British Airways ($763), Malaysia Airlines ($590), Virgin Atlantic ($580), Singapore Airlines ($571) and Cathay Pacific ($532) charge more than $500 in fuel surcharges on a return flight from Australia to London.
According to Flight Centre, airlines introduced small fuel surcharges in 2004 after oil prices topped $US40 per barrel. Since then, oil prices have more than doubled.
But, says Turner, many airlines have increased fuel surcharges at a significantly higher rate.
He says Qantas’s current $760 surcharge on a return flight to London is more than 12 times its initial surcharge of $60.
The surcharge has not decreased since March 2009, with the last five movements being increases, he says.
Those increases saw Qantas’s fuel surcharges to London quadruple between February 2011 and March 2012.
Singapore Airlines introduced a $US20 surcharge on return flights to London in June 2004. Today’s surcharge – $US520 – is 26 times that amount.
Removing surcharges wouldn’t make airfares any cheaper; it would simply end the marketing charade that attempts to apportion blame for them to outsiders.
