Fuel Surcharge - what if.....?

What happens with an existing booking on which the old fuel surcharge was paid? Do I have to stump up the extra six quid and if so how/when?

Thanks

No as once a ticket is confirmed prices/taxes etc are locked as are included as part of the sale

I assumed this was the case but thanks for confirming.

Nope - you only pay this on new tickets:



"This latest increase will take place from Wednesday 7 September, it said."

In case anybody is wondering why there is a fuel surcharge instead of a simple increase in the ticket price (which would attract less negative publicity).......

There are 2 reasons.

1) Money is raised equally from all passengers regardless of ticket type, including reward and low price tickets. This roughly corresponds to making the increase proportional to the load; which is reasonable, since the higher the load, the more fuel required. Also if you increased the ticket price to account for a fuel surcharge, as you discount the ticket you would also discount the increase for the fuel surcharge.

2) Money raised from a fuel surcharge goes into a pot marked 'Fuel purchases', not into the general profit & loss account (I know I am generalising here for simplicity). As such, it is directly spent on tax free fuel (at about $670/tonne) and, I believe, not assessed towards the operating profit on the airline.

Hmmmm.... (engage rant mode;))

In this case why do we not pay for the fuel totally seperately - thus it would be totally fair and every passenger would be paying for their own share of fuel.
Surely passengers should also be paying for the percentage of the aircraft that their seat occupies in relation to other passengers - thus UC passengers should be paying more as UCS takes up proportionally more space and I'm sure weighs more.
In addition why is it the same amount regardless of aircraft and route - does not seem very fair to me.

Ditto the second point - the airline would be able to itemise the entire fuel cost and not add to the general P&L. Why not pay for food seperately - is that not zero rated for tax - why add that to the P&L

To my mind Fuel - including increases - are part of what you pay for in the ticket price. When the first fuel surcharge was introduced I just accepted it but I have to say that as it is increased again and again and again you do begin to question it a bit - effectively it is allowing airlines to freeze their fare recognised fuel bill at a certain level and then apply all increases as a surcharge - eventually 90% of the fuel bill will be as a surcharge and we'll be paying a £200 fuel surcharge to cross the atlantic.

(Disengage rant mode - place head in bucket of cold water - prepare to defend position [B)])

Phil (Buffy)

[fozzyo]

Thanks for that Pat, just read BA upping their surcharge again on the BBC News and you have just answered the questions I had about it.

The worry is that when oil prices come back down again the fuel surcharges won't by the same level.

Foz xxx

LONDON (AP) -- British Airways said Thursday it was raising its fuel surcharge on long flights to 30 pounds ($55), an increase of 6 pounds ($11) per trip.
The surcharge on short-haul flights was unchanged at 8 pounds ($14.70).

"This latest fuel surcharge rise is very regrettable, but we have little choice to pass some of our extra costs on to our customers," British Airways' commercial director, Martin George, said.


(8th Sept 05)

If say the fuel charge sits in a separate account code pot ... I wonder whether that pot will show a surplus or a deficit at the end of the year ... whatever, you can be sure that there'll be a relationship to how revenue and profit are reported.