Airlines Roll Back Surcharges Just Days After Doubling Them
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Major American airlines began rolling back fuel surcharges yesterday just days after doubling the fee to $40 on round-trip tickets as domestic passengers balked at the fare increases amid signs of a slowing economy.
It was the latest setback for the airline industry, which has been trying to pass the cost of higher fuel costs to passengers by tacking on surcharges to the price of the ticket.
A similar effort two weeks ago to raise the surcharge to $50 also was withdrawn, with fuel surcharges remaining at about $20 for most of the large airlines.
“This is a behavior that we are likely to see for the duration of 2008,” an editor-at-large for online travel service Travelocity.com, Amy Ziff, said. “They’re trying to recover the cost of fuel, so they’re going to find some way to pass it to customers.”
Ms. Ziff said travelers needed to be particularly savvy this year while shopping for low fares, which may include a surcharge one day but not another day.
“You have to keep an eye on it and if you see a good price, I’d say go for it because it might not be there in a day or two,” she said.
