taxes of a flight????

[number]

I am really curious: what does taxes of a flight that passengers have to pay depend on?
Wouldn't be possible to include the taxes in the price of the ticket in order to have a clearer idea of the cost? After all, a passenger couldn't care the less how much taxes he has to pay for the fuel surcharges, crisis surcharges or aerodrome taxes....
Is it true that taxes are always switchable? Do they depend on the type of aircraft used or what?

[flyingfemme]

Taxes on multi-leg flights depend upon the charges imposed by the airports enroute.........different airports, different charges PLUS the government charges for the country that the airport is in.

For example - flying from the UK to the West Coast; route could be LHR-LAX paying only UK tax, Heathrow charges outbound and US tax, LA charges unbound. Or you could go BHX-AMS-BOS-LAX (some people buy tickets on price alone) and get hit for 3 lots of airport and state taxes EACH WAY! Some of these choices are in the hands of the passenger and the airline doesn't want to be blamed for the high price of things outside their control!

[bealine]

Airlines don't seem very keen to refund the tax

In BA's case, this is true (but not out of ill-will towards the customer). The un-refunded taxes roughly equate to uncollected additional taxes in "involuntary re-route" situations.

(E.g. - A transfer passenger is brought into LHR late and misses his connection to San Francisco. He is rerouted LHR-JFK-SFO, which incurs extra taxes. Naturally, we can't make the passenger pay - the missed connection wasn't his fault - so the extra tax comes from the un-refunded "pool".)

Here in Blighty, our wonderful (New?) Labour Government showed their intense dislike of elitism by doubling the tax on Business and First Class travel. BA does not charge this on upgrades, even though the Government collects the additional tax.

[MerchantVenturer]

easyJet have just announced a promotion from BRS to BFS, free fares and just pay the taxes and charges.

I visited their online booking site for flights out and back on Tuesday 10 February 2004.

Sure enough the 'return' flight itself is shown as free with a total of £22 in taxes and charges (£11.50 outbound and £10.50 inbound).

I then checked Flybe's booking site for the same date, BRS to BHD, again out in the morning and back in the evening. These flights are also shown as free but with a total of £38 taxes and charges for the return journey.

Fybe show the taxes and charges as consisting of Airport Departure Tax, Passenger Service Charge and Security/Insurance Charge.

Can anyone explain why Flybe charge £16 more than easyJet for taxes and charges on virtually the same route?

[JobsaGoodun]

I think the difference will come down to the charges levied by each airport. You can bet that Easy have negotiated a very competitive rate at BFS as they remain the only major airline now operating from here save BMIBaby.

I would anticipate that Easy also negotiated a very good deal with BRS aswell and the combination of BRSBFS is probably offering lower charges as (and I stand to be corrected, TBI own both BFS and BRs airports.

Flybe's total charges on the BRSBHD route are £10.00 for APD and £25.50 for PSC/Security Charges.

Yes both fly to Belfast but the charges levied by each airport differ greatly

[MerchantVenturer]

Many thanks JobsaGoodun.

BTW the airport at BRS is owned by the Australian Macquarie Bank and Cintra which is a subsidiary of the Spanish Ferrovial company.

TBI owns CWL in this neck of the woods (also LTN I believe and, as you say, BFS).

[Hartington]

"Taxes/Fees/Charges" are levied by all sorts of people. Traditionally it was govrenments then various agencies of the governments got involved (e.g. when you fly in to the US you pay a fee to "use" immigration and another fee to "use" customs). Then the airlines decided to split out certain airport fees from the fare (where they had been included) and show them separately. The word on the street at the time it happened in the Uk was that the airlines were worried that loos of income from duty free sales would force the airports to increase fees to airlines who in turn would increase fares. By showing it as a "Tax" the airlines hoped the passengers would not blame them (the airlines) for the price hike.

But airports don't charge the same to all airlines. The variations are legion; airline/departure/arrival/route/date/time/aircraft weight (and probably more) all feature in the calculations. The fees are not set in stone and airlines can (and do) negotiate deals.

Recently, with reductions in their commission, agencies have started to charge various fees and there has been pressure to showm then as yet another "tax" on the ticket. With the exception of one country the airlines have resisted that....so far.

So, when you look at the Tax/Fee/Charge box on a ticket your money could be going to all sorts of places, not just a government.