QANTAS TO INCREASE FUEL TAX FROM 1ST DECEMBER 2005

[Maca44]

http://www.qantas.com.au/agents/dyn/qf/info/pdf/FuelClueCard.pdf

re Fuel and Insurance Surcharge (YQ Tax)

Effective for bookings made on/after 01 December 2005, the Qantas YQ Fuel and Insurance surcharge will be amended as follows:

USD49.20 for all sectors between Australia and Hong Kong (previously USD45.30) (Note US currency)

Sold in Australia ($AUD) Fuel Insurance Total YQ (as they include fuel, insurance and total I have only posted the total cost in AUD.

International flight sectors except sectors into/out of KG/Tasman/Vietnam and sectors into/out of Fiji $81.00
Tasman flight sectors $52.00
Fiji flight sectors $55.90
Australian domestic sectors inc GST * $32.60
QantasLink $28.60
NZ domestic sectors # 28.40
USA domestic sectors 0.00
All sectors between Canada and USA 0.00

Sold in Australia ($USD) Fuel Insurance Total YQ
All sectors into/out of HKG 49.20
All sectors into/out of Vietnam 45.00

* Domestic flights taken in conjunction with International travel, issued on the same ticket, do not attract GST

# this amount applies to domestic travel within New Zealand regardless of whether travel is purely domestic or in conjunction with international travel

The above info was posted in the QF Agents site on 28.10.05 so forgive me if it has been posted previously.

 

[JohnK]

Why am I not surprised? :roll:

 

[Guest]

Awesome news!! GJ QF!

 

[Mal]

Grrrrrrrr!

The least Qantas could do is to call the morning after each flight... :evil: :evil: :evil:

The change this time is increasing the "surcharge" to/from HKG. A few days ago they increased the charge to/from Vietnam.

Wonder when all of the surcharges are due to go up yet again!

 

[serfty]

QF may be in a little bit of strife in NZ; Air NZ certainly are.

I don't have the details with me but today I read that Air NZ lost a case where their Gov't consider that fuel surcharges are really part of the fare and should be advertised as such. Some rather large fines in the pipeline for misleading advertising.

Apparently QF are now in their sights.

 

[JohnK]

Apparently QF are now in their sights.

I certainly hope so.

I can remember the days when an airfare was an airfare and all you had to add was departure tax. Or was I just so naive in those days.

 

[Kiwi Flyer]

Be good if fuel surcharges are consigned to the scrap heap.

However, and I havent seen the full report, it is puzzling to me that of 20 sample charges only in some were NZ found to be guilty. If a fuel surcharge is not allowed as a separate charge I'd have thought none would be allowed. But then maybe the not guilty charges only relate to advertising?

The verdict was bad timing for Air NZ coming as it did so soon after they reported fuel costs will be $40 million less this year than expected.

 

[Mal]

From my quick reading of the Air NZ/Qantas NZ case, I don't believe they got pinned over having fuel as a seperate charge.

I believe they got in strife because they advertised in a manner that didn't display the surcharges correctly/prominately.

 

[serfty]

From my quick reading of the Air NZ/Qantas NZ case, I don't believe they got pinned over having fuel as a seperate charge.

I believe they got in strife because they advertised in a manner that didn't display the surcharges correctly/prominately.

NZ consumer watchdog to take Air NZ, Qantas to court
Friday 25 November 2005, 11:30pm EST

WELLINGTON, Nov 25 (Reuters) - Air New Zealand (AIR.NZ: Quote, Profile, Research) and Australian rival Qantas (QAN.AX: Quote, Profile, Research) are to be charged with hundreds of cases of misleading advertising by a New Zealand consumer watchdog, potentially leading to fines of millions of dollars.

The Commerce Commission, which administers consumer protection laws, said it would charge Air New Zealand with 300 alleged breaches and Qantas with 399 ...

The charges come after Air NZ was found guilty in a district court of breaching consumer laws in 14 of 20 sample charges brought by the commission after consumers complained that extra costs were being added to the price of advertised fares.

In some advertisments the extra charges were not properly disclosed and in others normal operating costs, such as fuel, were disguised as extra charges. ...

"The judgement leaves no room for doubt that operating costs, such as fuel, must be included in prices, not charged as extras, and any additional costs must be transparently disclosed," Rebstock said in a statement.

"Obviously the court will look at the overall level of offending and they will take into account the nature of the breaches of the law and they will come to an overall fine." ...

Qantas had no immediate statement to make.

 

[infoworks]

Good to see some action. I am sick and tired of everyone referring to the whole "lump sum" as "taxes" when most are airline fuel levies. It is misleading and some airlines (e.g QF) have used it unstintingly.

 

[Guest]

hate to tell you, but if Qantas are forced to build fuel charges into the cost of the tickets...the ticket price will rise a lot more than the exact value of the fuel surcharge, plus they'll whack a big "cough you nz gov" fee ontop of it all just to make a point.

Also they will lose money on award tickets, which they'll need to makeup elsewhere.

For these reasons I support a separate charge

 

[oz_mark]

Strangely enough, for some reason I thought fuel prices had come down a bit. Certainly petrol where I buy it has come down in the last couple of months. What's up with Jet Fuel? Still going up?

 

[Dave Noble]

hate to tell you, but if Qantas are forced to build fuel charges into the cost of the tickets...the ticket price will rise a lot more than the exact value of the fuel surcharge, plus they'll whack a big "cough you nz gov" fee ontop of it all just to make a point.

Also they will lose money on award tickets, which they'll need to makeup elsewhere.

For these reasons I support a separate charge

They shouldn't need to "make up" the value of award tickets given that they are given for points earned

If they have to include the fuel surcharge in fares, then they hopefully will not be able to penalise people for multiple sectors. e..g how much extra fuel is used travelling LHR-SIN and SIN-SYD over taking the same flights when ticketed as LHR-SYD? Is there any justification for extra fuel fees for that?

The 3rd world may be dire for airline travel but at least the 3rd world carriers in that land south of Canadia include it in fares

Fuel is a fundamental element for airline travel and to charge it as an extra is ridiculous

Dave

 

[infoworks]

In my recent experience, QF add the "surcharges" to the FF ticket. A recent ticket to OOL for my daughter incurred about 50% of what an actual ticket would have cost in "surcharges". Yes, I did think about it.

 

[NM]

hate to tell you, but if Qantas are forced to build fuel charges into the cost of the tickets...the ticket price will rise a lot more than the exact value of the fuel surcharge, plus they'll whack a big "cough you nz gov" fee ontop of it all just to make a point.

Also they will lose money on award tickets, which they'll need to makeup elsewhere.

For these reasons I support a separate charge

If they need to adjust the number of points required to redeem an award because their cost to provide that award has increased, then I will accept that increase. But I believe fuel should be included in the fare price and not added on as some extra. High fuel prices are here to stay, so it a cost of doing business. Include it in the ticket price and stop trying to convince us that this is a tax and as such it is someone else's responsibility.

Mind you, I saw the points devaluation last May as being to cover their increased costs. So why hit us twice for it?

 

[dajop]

Well it seems in this part of the world the fuel surcharges are here to stay, but at least in some place they do things differently. I am booking some flights on LAN for March next year (that I couldn't fit into my RTW award booking mileage/stopover limit!), and I came across the LAN Fuel Surcharge Formula.

This varies the fuel surcharge based on the average of previous two weeks WTI barrel price. This means the fuel surcharge has actually dropped recently. Remarkably transparent for an airline!