Air Asia Re-Introducing Fuel Surcharges

[theoldgit]

Air Asia, who abandoned fuel surcharges in a blaze of publicity, have bowed to the inevitable and are re-introducing them for all international bookings made from 3rd May, it doesn't apply to bookings already made.

I read elsewhere that it will not apply to domestic flights within Thailand.

http://www.airasia.com/th/en/latestnews/fuelsurcharge.html

[theoldgit]

Checked their website today and the fuel surcharges are now showing, for example Bangkok to Macau incurs a surcharge of 200 Baht each way.

[PattayaParent]

Well fuel prices are going up and up.

Every week when I fill my car up with petrol there's an extra 1 Baht on the unit price at the pump.

No doubt all other airlines will add fuels surcharges too, although some will hide them in the price so they don't have to bring them down or remove them when prices fall again.

[Sam Drucker]

Well fuel prices are going up and up.

Every week when I fill my car up with petrol there's an extra 1 Baht on the unit price at the pump.

No doubt all other airlines will add fuels surcharges too, although some will hide them in the price so they don't have to bring them down or remove them when prices fall again.

I have a few problems with these fuel surcharges. There can be some shenanigans as there is no transparency to the process of establishing them. They are not defined or referenced to a specific fuel price. Why are they being charged? Because fuel is above what price? When will they go away? When fuel drops below what price? If you think back to late 2008 and early 2009, fuel dropped to about $35 USD/barrel, yet fuel surcharges got reduced but never went entirely away.

Another practice that should be reined in is airlines displaying prices before adding in taxes and surcharges. Since nobody can avoid paying these charges, it is pointless and deceptive to show anything but the bottom-line price. From there, a breakdown is in order to show the various taxes, fees, and surcharges that make up the total ticket price. Even for airlines that do display their pricing this way (such as THAI), there is a tendency to mislead the public. If you look at THAI's fares on the web page for purchasing a ticket, it will show you the total fare, and break it down into the actual fare, and the amount of "Taxes". The "Taxes" category is a hyperlink. When you click it, they show all the different taxes, user fees, and surcharges for things like security, customs, agriculture inspection, fuel, etc. The largest portion of the "Taxes" (by far) is the fuel surcharge. The airline establishes and receives that; it has nothing to do with the government or taxes. Generally, the airlines even try to obscure what it actually is, many times referring to the fuel surcharge by code as "YQ."

This happens throughout the airline industry, so it would take a multi-national effort (or one through the IATA trade group) to stop this practice. As it is now, most international airlines fraudulently categorize fuel surcharges as taxes, thus blaming the government for something they themselves are actually benefiting from.