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Same Flight, Different Fare
ChrisCrossings · May 1, 2002

Q: Both United Airlines and Air Canada offer a roundtrip coach fare from New Orleans to Toronto for $168. Both are Internet weekend specials. However, when you go to book the flights, the fare on United comes to $204.85 when taxes and fees are included, but the Air Canada price becomes $254.83.

In fact, traveling on the same Air Canada nonstop flight is cheaper if the ticket is bought on United as a code-share rather than on Air Canada. Why should there be a difference in price when both airlines are charging the same fare?

-- Jeffrey Alter

A: Air Canada adds a fuel surcharge of $37.20 and a $9.30 "NAV Canada" fee (that's for the air traffic control authority in Canada) to the price of your ticket. You saw that when you booked your ticket. So what gives?

Surcharges are a controversial issue these days. No one wants to criticize the airlines because they're in such dire financial straits, which means that travel writers like me have been silent on the issue of these extras. While this may help the carriers reach profitability faster, it doesn't serve your interests, and the last time I checked, I was supposed to be on your side.

United Airlines, like its competitors, imposes a fuel surcharge on its tickets. But it factors that into the price of your fare when you buy it online. Air Canada breaks the cost down when it offers you a final price.

Fuel surcharges are not new. They were imposed about two years ago at a time of soaring jet fuel prices and then never removed. I called several airlines to ask about the fees. Some, such as Delta Air Lines, would not answer my question. A United Airlines spokesman brushed off my request, saying "We charge what everyone else charges, but I don't know what that is." Alaska Airlines says it has a fuel surcharge, but declined to be more specific because it "varies from market to market," according to a representative. American Airlines imposes a fuel surcharge of $20 per ticket per flight segment, meaning that a roundtrip ticket carries a $40 fuel surcharge. That's believed to be the industry standard.

Only Continental Airlines fessed up to the nature of the surcharge. It admitted that the term "fuel" had been removed from the charge, and said the money now covers "the increased cost of doing business and represents a component of the total revenue we collect to try to cover total expenses."

Until recently, jet fuel prices had dropped to almost half of what they were a year ago. But they've recently bounced back, begging the question: are airlines going to impose a fuel surcharge on top of a fuel surcharge? I hope not. I wonder how they're going to explain that to us. They might try what Air New Zealand did when it admitted that it couldn't forgo the extra revenue it had been earning from its temporary fuel surcharge introduced two years ago. It told passengers that it would incorporate the extra fee into its normal pricing schedules.

Air Canada is actually one of the most straightforward of the airlines. Last November it cut its fuel surcharge in half in response to lower jet fuel prices. It now adds a $7.50 (CDN) fee to its tickets and it promised to closely monitor jet fuel prices and "will adjust the surcharge accordingly."

Ultimately, in your case, Air Canada's fare "match" with United is disingenuous. That's because it didn't include the full price of the ticket on its advertised Internet fare. Essentially, it lied in order to stay competitive. And on a code-sharing flight, no less.

So I say: Good job, Air Canada. And shame on you at the same time. Telling the truth is a good thing, but for Pete's sake, can't you keep it up?

Christopher Elliott's column appears on weekly on Ticked.com. All e-mailed questions to ChrisCrossings become property of Ticked.com and may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion. You may reach Elliott at chris@ticked.com. Or visit his home page at http://www.elliott.org.