Yes and no. Some airlines are cutting back on their fuel surcharges, others are not.
Chinese airlines will stop fuel surcharges on domestic routes Feb 5th, as reported in this article on Reuters.
Others, like Canada’s WestJet, say no they won’t stop charging fuel surcharges or pass fuel savings on to consumers, in that ticket prices are really determined by supply and demand. Fuel prices are volatile and can change quickly, and any profits generated are returned to shareholders. That story from the Globe and Mail.
I do understand the supply and demand factor, but it just does not sit well with my sense of fairness when a major business expense reduces, that some of these savings aren’t passed on to consumers.
Fuel suppliers in the UK have been shown to be driven by greed.
Refusing to reduce the price of fuel back to the times when oil was $50 a barrel.
Offering 3%. Which is quite insulting.
Virgin and British Airways were jointly fixing the surcharge on trans Atlantic flights.
Virgin took the offer of first one to squeal gets the deal.
BA was fined millions for cheating customers.
Then the Government took the money and kept it.
No intention of reimbursing the cheated customers.
Trans Atlantic fares are still a huge rip off.
I will still be getting a 2 weeks all inclusive package to the Caribbean (from the UK) for
less than a UK-New York + RTN air flight in August.
People need to stop asking about fuel surcharges and ask “Why are you blatantly just ripping people off ?”
“Because we can”