Higher Fuel Surcharges For BA Premium Passengers
British Airways has announced that it will be charging higher fuel surcharges for its premium passengers.
Business and first class passengers on long-haul flights will now pay a surcharge of £266 for a return ticket, an increase of 26% on the previous figure of £218.
Premium passengers on medium-haul flights will now pay a £196 fuel surcharge.
The fuel surcharges increase comes only two weeks after BA last imposed increases on passengers' tickets.
BA Fuel Surcharges
Passengers are now paying more than two-thirds the amount in surcharges on their tickets as they did earlier in the year, which reflects the increase in oil prices in the intervening time.
The levy for a one-way, long-haul flight of more than nine hours for business and first-class passengers is now £133 (or £266 return) - at the start of 2008, the figure was just £58.
The surcharge for premium economy passengers is now £121 one-way. The charge for economy-class passengers remains at £109 one-way.
Oil Prices
The airline blamed soaring oil prices for the higher surcharges.
BA Chief Executive Willie Walsh said: "Recent unprecedented oil price rises are putting pressure on the whole aviation industry. For British Airways, fuel is expected to overtake employee costs this year to become our largest cost. BA's fuel bill for the year is expected to rise from just over £2 billion to more than £3 billion".
He continued: "Therefore we believe it is now appropriate to spread some of this significant additional cost among those passengers travelling in cabins with fewer seats, using more space and benefiting from larger baggage allowances".
BA surcharges were first introduced in 2004. Other airlines, such as Virgin Atlantic, have also raised surcharges in recent weeks.
Source - Airport International's Aviation Correspondent
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