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Originally Posted by Wormius
I also noticed something that seems kind of new-ish - this carrier surcharge fee. It was amounting to about $330 per ticket on some flights I was looking at for AC. I hadn't noticed this before, and definitely not when I had AC tickets to Iceland last summer. Is this only on certain routes or what or is this in anticipation for the compensation rules? I only noticed it because of how inflated the total fare got on flights for 4 people.
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Often times the 'carrier surcharge' is really what airlines call the 'fuel surcharge', which you've probably seen for years. If it's a substantial percentage of the ticket price, that's probably what it is.
Air Canada is famous for their high fuel / carrier surcharges, especially when redeeming a flight on Aeroplan. This way they can claim you are redeeming your points for a 'free flight' but you are still paying high taxes and fees, making it a bad deal.
Airlines can do all kinds of sneaky things with their carrier/fuel surcharges. They can hide them in the base fare, or they can keep them separate. They're not real taxes, or based on any set of defined rules. One airline could have a $300 base fare + $300 taxes/fees for YYC-KEF. Another could have $500 base fare + $100 taxes/fees for the exact same route.
At the end of the day all that matters is the total price, after all taxes and fees.
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