Woof From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Posted (3 years 6 months 3 weeks 2 days 23 hours ago) and read 3431 times:
HI All,
I'm trying to find a resource that will provide me a breakdown of taxes and charges applied to a ticket I'm about to buy from Malaysia Airlines (before I buy it!). It's the third time this year I will have flown the route, but the first time that I've noticed the taxes / charges are pretty much the same cost as the actual flight.
For example:
I can fly LHR > KUL return for around £500 which includes £220.20 tax / charges
I can fly LHR > PNH return for around £550 which includes £271.60 tax / charges
According to the UK HMRC (taxes!) website, an economy ticket flying longhaul out of the UK should cost the reduced rate of £40 in tax. BAA's website which is supposed to show airport charges is conveniently a broken link.
Where is the rest of my money going? The other £180 / £230 is an awful lot of airport charges / fuel surcharge etc.
I'm particularly intersted to see that the tax to fly to PNH is more than £50 extra, but this does not include the $25 departure tax that you have to pay in cash at that airport on the return leg. What exactly is this extra £50 for, as I'm already paying extra in addition at that airport anyway?
MilesDependent From Australia, joined Sep 2001, 838 posts, RR: 0 Reply 1, posted (3 years 6 months 3 weeks 2 days 23 hours ago) and read 3423 times:
I don't have the exact figures but I can tell you that MH has very high fuel surcharges. EG: A return SYD-LHR has fuel surcharges of USD420!! I expect a LHR-KUL-LHR would come in at around USD280ish.
Woof From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 2, posted (3 years 6 months 3 weeks 2 days 23 hours ago) and read 3407 times:
Quoting MilesDependent (Reply 1): I don't have the exact figures but I can tell you that MH has very high fuel surcharges. EG: A return SYD-LHR has fuel surcharges of USD420!! I expect a LHR-KUL-LHR would come in at around USD280ish.
Wow. In that case it shouldn't be called a fuel surcharge, it should just be called fuel!
Taking the same destinations, on the same dates (albeit via different routes of course):
Thai Airways tax comes in at £290 and £268.60 respectively for similarly priced flights (KUL more than PNH this time)
Korean Air tax comes in at EUR96.50 and EUR86.42 respectively but for a total cost of double the others.
It would be nice to be able to compare apples with apples, rather than each airline seemingly placing different weightings on base fare / fuel surcharges etc assuming that overall departure taxes and airport fees are in the same ballpark.
Woof From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 3, posted (3 years 6 months 3 weeks 2 days 22 hours ago) and read 3376 times:
Singapore Airlines shows a brief breakdown on taxes and surcharges which can be expanded to provide a full break down.
As an example, their charges of £232.60 are broken down as:
Passenger Service Charge - (Domestic/International)(UB) GBP 21.20
Air Passenger Duty (APD) (Domestic/International)(GB) GBP 55.00
Airline Fuel and Insurance Surcharge(YR) GBP 0.80
Airline Insurance(YQAD) GBP 12.40
Airline Fuel Surcharge(YQAC) GBP 143.20
Well done Singapore Airlines for being far more transparent than all the others I've tried. More fool me for believing that the fuel surcharge for such a route would be in the range of £50.
DeltAirlines From United States of America, joined May 1999, 8771 posts, RR: 13 Reply 6, posted (3 years 6 months 3 weeks 1 day 16 hours ago) and read 3327 times:
Are you flying in Business Class at all? The UK thinks that those flying in premium cabins on long haul travel should be dinged extra because heaven forbid we cause CO2 emissions, so they levy an expensive tax on those people.
Hence, when dealing with my own money, I will gladly take a $75 USD flight to the continent and fly out of a city like AMS - I still come out ahead about $150 on taxes on award tickets. Kinda defeats the purpose of the tax - I take a flight I don't really want to take (more CO2 emissions, which they're supposedly discouraging), but if it saves me $150 on an award ticket then I don't care. $150 is worth more to me than carbon offsets.
Probably not, unfortunately. This one is coming out of my own funds and is as much a "mileage top up" as a "need to go" trip. I did consider going from AMS, but (at least with MH), the London tickets are cheaper even taking extra tax into consideration. Adding a LHR > AMS hop would add 20%+ to the price.
After finding your exact flight, it will give a breakdown of all fare components and taxes. Useful for those of us planning frequent flyer redemptions where we only have to pay tax
Now that is a useful link, thank you. It doesn't produce fares as low as I can find directly, but it does provide routing suggestions I hadn't considered.
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From , joined Dec 1969, posts, 
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