Excessive Taxes and Surcharges

[kingjjj]

I'm flying to Dublin for Christmas with my wife. The ticket was booked a while ago and I contacted my travel agent to add my newborn daughter to the booking. Her fare was only 10% of our fare (about $200) but the taxes and charges were another $850 on top of that! I was amazed at how much higher these were compared to the base fare.

Does this sound reasonable, or is there some way to reduce these?

The ticket is a return trip SYD-xSIN-xLHR-DUB on Qantas.

 

[ozmille]

Seems very expensive indeed but I just did a dummy booking 1 ADT and INF SYD to DUB and the INF comes in at 1049.90!

 

[Boris spatsky]

LHR is a killer with taxes...

 

[Gold Member]

Does this sound reasonable, or is there some way to reduce these?

Yep, don't fly with Qantas. Plenty of other airlines operating that route out of Australia without the exorbitant 'taxes' that Qantas likes to call them (rather than revenue for fuel surcharges). And for APD while transiting LHR in economy its not that much really, but step into any higher cabin and you can forget about the lube.

 

[Aussie_flyer]

LHR is a killer with taxes...

You don't pay the UK APD when transiting LHR from another country

 

[anat0l]

As suspected, the killer on the auxiliary charges here is the Qantas YQ, the infamous two-letter code for fuel surcharge. The return YQ charged by QF alone is AU$760.00, then there is additional YQ charged which is passed onto the operator of LHR-DUB (usually EI).

Yep, that hurts quite a bit.

You don't pay the UK APD when transiting LHR from another country

Correct, which in this case it is a transit, and the auxiliary breakdown shows no APD charged.

The only thing collected by the UK on this ticket is the passenger service charge, AU$70.90. The Irish charge AU$25.30 all up (passenger charge + air travel tax), the Singaporeans charge AU$19.40, and.... drumroll please.... Australia charges AU$106.84 altogether (two international passenger movement charges, plus departure tax).

 

[Boris spatsky]

You don't pay the UK APD when transiting LHR from another country

Oops, sorry. Thought it was an overnight at LHR.

 

[dajop]

You don't pay the UK APD when transiting LHR from another country

Correct. And APD also not due for infants who are not occupying a seat:

Children below the age of two who are not allocated a separate seat before boarding the aircraft are not liable to APD. If a seat is purchased for the infant then APD is chargeable.

 

[Aussie_flyer]

Correct. And APD also not due for infants who are not occupying a seat:

the same is true for many airport/government taxes when flying, infants don't pay. The taxes the OP mentions seem extremely high. I recently issued a ticket MEL-DXB-CPT return and the fare for infant not occupying seat was under $200 all inclusive. This was on Emirates though and they don't charge fuel surcharges.

 

[pat25d]

the same is true for many airport/government taxes when flying, infants don't pay. The taxes the OP mentions seem extremely high. I recently issued a ticket MEL-DXB-CPT return and the fare for infant not occupying seat was under $200 all inclusive. This was on Emirates though and they don't charge fuel surcharges.

+1 to avoiding Qantas, look at the middle Easterns where you should be able to 1 stop it.

 

[The Rok]

Most of QF's code shares from LHR to DUB are back onto BA as BA have increased their frequency on the route.

 

[Aussie_flyer]

Most of QF's code shares from LHR to DUB are back onto BA as BA have increased their frequency on the route.

yes, they have increased it from 0. Before the BMI takeover they were not flying to Dublin.