Englishmum

I bought a ticket on Virgin Atlantic last night (flying from Newark, NJ to LHR in a couple of weeks, returning on 3rd April).

I know that flights departing from the UK now have very high taxes on long-haul routes (which is why I've heard that a lot of people are changing to KLM, Air France, Lufthansa etc.) so their first leg of the journey is shorter and thus less to pay in taxes.

Look at the breakdown of the flight price:

1 round trip ticket in economy class US $194.00

Taxes/Fees/Charges/Surcharges US $496.10

Breakdown (YQ 292.00, GB 97.30 XT 106.80 = $496.10. I guess the YQ or XT is a fuel surcharge?)

This is for off-season travel....

GeoffM

http://www.caa.co.uk/default.aspx?ca...90&pageid=2449

Gives an overview.

robin1234

Still, less than $700 for a round trip to the UK isn't bad... I'm thinking, when you buy a lettuce at the supermarket, it just says "$2.00." If it said "25cents. Fuel surcharge $1.75" would that make a difference?

Bluegrass Lass

I noticed this the other day too. I just bought a ticket to fly to Glasgow from my local airport, for travel in March. The taxes and fees were almost as high as the fare. It was barely over $700, but to save money I went with KLM (which gives me a stopovers in Detroit and Amsterdam). I noticed all the flights that went through LHR were about 50% more!

Ash UK/US

I just got back a week ago, we went GR-Detroit-Amsterdam-Newcastle (same return) for my daughter and I it cost $1600. Sounds a lot but when it is broken down to the cost per flight it is just under $134 per person per flight.