29 April 2008

British Airways (BA) today (29 April) increased its fuel surcharge on all tickets issued from Friday 2 May.

Surcharges on BAs short-haul services rise by 3 to 13, by 10 to 63 on long-haul flights of less than nine hours, and by 15 to 79 on all longer flights.

A host of airlines has been raising fares, fees and fuel surcharges in recent weeks as the price of oil keeps hitting record highs it was nearly $120 (61) on Monday. And this mornings news was that both Shell and BP announced better-than-expected first-quarter profits of 3.9bn and 3.31bn respectively.

Things are no better Stateside Northwest said in a statement last Friday it would match the approximately 3%-5% fare increase first implemented by United and matched by Delta, American and Continental, with the carriers senior vice president of revenue management explaining it was all down to offsetting the extraordinarily high cost of fuel.

Australian carrier Qantas is raising fares on tickets sold from 9 May, and its CEO Geoff Dixon admitted yesterday that if high fuel prices persist beyond this point it would be of increasing concern.

Its domestic fares rise by around 3.5% and international ones by 3%.

Qantas is working hard to counter the rise in fuel prices with further efficiency improvements [including] a hiring freeze and cutbacks to non-essential expenditure, said Dixon. We will continue to monitor fare and surcharge levels and review our network and schedule to optimise capacity.

On the plus side, the company said it has hedged 34% of its 2008/09 fuel needs at $90 a barrel.

United Airlines said it will continue in its hunt for consolidation after Continental retreated from any possible merger in a statement, president and CEO Glenn Tilton said: Consolidation in underway ensuring you have the right partner is everything.

We will pursue all options to ensure a strong, sustainable future for our airline and will not shy away from the tough choices necessary to create value for our shareholders and benefit our employees and customers.

Delta and Northwest recently agreed to merge in order to try to cut costs and weather the current exceptionally tough economic period.

Virgin Blue and Emirates have also announced price increases.