At last, an investigation into the rip off surcharges that get loaded onto airline tickets. We all thought that past deregulation would sort this out, but unfortunately not. I have been annoyed about this for years and here is an example of why I think this investigation is overdue.
Two years ago I was doing some work for a client in Paris and over a nine-month period, I visited Paris some 20 times. Because I knew the ‘advance’ dates of many of my trips, I was able to get many advance bookings for very cheap return tickets on scheduled British Airways (BA) flights to/from Paris.
One fare I remember was for a flight cost of UK£25.00, but with surcharges of UK£35.00! (total price UK£60.00). I happened to query this fare and as to how the surcharges were higher than the actual fare. It took me nearly five days to eventually find someone in BA who could advise me what the UK£35.00 covered.
The break down of the surcharges included payments being made to a) British Airports Authority (BAA) for handling charges, b) Paris Airports for handling charges, c) Fuel surcharge, and d) Miscellaneous charges, which I was told included UK government taxes, Insurance and Security surcharges and any other charges! These were still undefined after my follow-up conversations with BA. I also could not get anyone at BA to email or write to me about these questions or to give me a monetary breakdown for each part.
Today BA and some other airlines quote tickets that now include the surcharges within the cost of the overall air fare, so this makes now it more difficult to actually see what percentage of the air fare is down to surcharges, which to me a backwards step, but of course an advantage for the airline. For some current info on what is covered today by such air line ticket surcharges check out this latest list.
I will follow with interest the investigation to see if it does find anything that will in the end really benefit the average ‘flyer’!
Tags: Air Fares, British Airways
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