Taxes & charges

Just looking at some flights from Leeds to Alicante. The airline in question was originally offering £0.00 flights with £10 taxes and charges, so £20 for my Son and I. Some 3 weeks later, the flights are still £0.00 but the taxes and charges are now £30ea. How does that work? Surely there hasn't been a huge increase in taxation in the last few weeks, neither have landing fees at Alicante increased hugely. I know it is just another way of raising prices but i'd love to know how they arrive at their prices.

This isn't intended to be a "bash an airline" thread, just trying to get my head around charges.

Mark

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I looked at some Jet2 flights this morning, and I noticed that when you select a day it tells you what the charges are, but interestingly selecting different days, and by just a day or so (same route) the charges differed by a few pounds. So that implies it may be cheaper to travel on certain days of the week, from a charges perspective

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I realise the charges may be cheaper on different days of the week, but these charges have differed so much for the exact same flight on the same day!!

Mark

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I had no idea that the charges could differ depending on the day of travel until I was playing about this morning. I was always under the impression that the charges would be the same (for the same route) no matter when you travelled. 

I generally find the charges are about £30-40 for a return, maybe on the day you originally looked there had been a mistake at a tenner? Or it really was a genuine bargain!

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It's the first day they fly from Leeds to Alicante which is probably why it was free with low charges, bit of a loss leader perhaps?

Mark

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I can only repeat an earlier posting called Breakdown of flight costs

This is the current breakdown for 2 Monarch return flights Gatwick to Murcia Jan/Feb 2009

Flight Costs
Air Fare:	£19.96
Air Passenger Duty:	£20.00
Fuel supplement:	£32.00
Passenger service charge:	£24.60
Airport departure tax:	£7.60
Airport handling Charge:	£4.14
Fee Sub-Total:	£4.99
Services Sub-Total:	£0.00
Total Cost (original pricing currency):	£113.29

As you can see each way flight was £4.99 but a fuel surcharge adds £8 pp each way, I still think it is possible that other airlines are adding in extra charges, not necessarily taxes, as and when it suits them.

This is despite the recent fall in oil price from $150 back to $82 as Markfish has mentioned, obviously they have all bought fuel forward as they know they can pass it on to passengers.

Despite EU protestations airlines will not advertise all in cost until you have nearly completed the booking.
In effect advertised prices are still a farce but at least prices are still competitive at certain times and hopefully will have to stay so whilst this financial crisis continues.

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