What would be your best guess?

The removal of the fuel surcharge with Air Canada only applies for flights within Canada and to/from the USA....they still show the same fuel surcharge for other international flights, e.g your Hfx to Heathrow deal...

I have no idea why this can be, other than 'because they can'. There's little.no competition and it must help their bottom line with fuel prices being so much lower than in the summer :curse:

Well my best guess is they will say "sorry, computer says Noooooo" or similar. But I wondered if anyone had ever had a fuel surcharge reduced or removed. Okay, you're right, I probably have more chance of winning Lotto 649.

Hi,

you can land at the border my OH did this we flew into Seattle drove to the border at Sumas US/Huntington Canada landed there it only took 10 mins! They were very nice about the whole matter, If you ve got items that are getting shipped write them all down on a seperate sheet of paper as you need to declare to them what you are bringing in now and what will follow!

Bear in mind that AC and many other airlines hedge. They would have locked-in to buying fuel at a certain price for some months. This explains it far better than I can.

http://www.canada.com/edmontonjourna...7-05ce458a3420

Thanks, it makes some sense but how come they can still take the surcharge of the 'within Canada, and to/from the USA flights'? Are they subsidising these flights with the extra charges for international routes with little or no alternatives for passengers to use?

I wouldn't pretend to understand how they think but I would imagine that they are using the international routes to claw back some of the money they have lost on hedging.

I seem to recall seeing on an airline-related forum talk that AC had hedged a fair chunk of their fuel (40-ish% maybe?) based on an oil price around $90/barrel. It might have been more, but I'd rather underestimate

To answer the OP - it seems that US airlines do indeed offer more competitive fares, even sometimes for itineraries originating in Canada. Obviously you need to trade off convenience against cost, but it can be surprising. We saved >30% on a return to Europe by flying United ex-BUF instead of AC ex-YYZ (and BUF is very child-friendly, with the Fisher-Price section to keep tiny ones very happy! Transferring at IAD was surprisingly painless, too. UA were a bit pants compared to recent AC experiences, but upgrading to E+ for extra legroom on the long-haul back was nice)

They weren't the only ones.

http://www.tetracom.ca/transtalk/?p=1962