Departure Tax & Fuel Surcharges
Departure Tax and Airfares - What to know:
There is a lot of general misunderstanding when it comes to airline prices and how much a ticket costs. Here are a few things to look out for and even beware.
Generally when an airline releases new fares to a travel agent, they will do so with the base airline fare. In Australia, an agent cannot promote those fares as they are exclusive of taxes and surcharges. This means that an advertised price would be misleading as it could be several hundred or even over a thousand dollars cheaper than the real price. Some airlines will also have a fuel surcharge included in their base costs and some don't. The really important thing here is to check if the fare being advertised is for the route you want and the dates, and that there are seats available at that fare.
Base Price:
This is the price that the airline sells the ticket and is exclusive of any additional taxes.
Fuel Surcharge:
The fuel charge (which is an operating cost) used to be included in the base price of the ticket. Since the Global Financial Crisis, airlines took to having this added to the tax box so that they could raise and lower the fuel without it affecting the base fare. This allowed airlines to provide fares to agents that seemed very competitive, but it is not until a proper comparison is done that the real fares can be understood. The fuel surcharge can often be seen in the tax breakdowns as a YQ tax. This can be several hundreds of dollars on a return trip.
Air Ticket Taxes:
The taxes you pay on an airline ticket are broken down into multiple taxes. These can be an airport noise reduction tax, a tax for airport improvement, government imposed taxes on flights into the country and airports, airport arrival and *departure taxes, and also several different taxes levied by a government on travellers. Again it is really important to have all these calculated by your travel agent so that you can get one price.
*Beware: There are various airports in the world that do not collect a departure tax in the ticket cost. This is collected locally. Your agent may not always be aware of this especially if you are travelling to many destinations. Ask your agent if they know or can check your flights. Some countries also do not permit payment of these taxes by credit card so you would have to have sufficient cash to pay these on your departures.
Credit Card Fees:
Some airlines permit credit cards to be used for payment of their tickets and do not charge a fee, some airlines do charge a fee, and some do not permit credit cards to be used for payment. Check with your agent as a credit card merchant fee might be payable on top of the fare, unless you are paying by cash.