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Whenever we book a flight we can see how the
total cost of the ticket is made up. This includes the cost of the
flight and the airport tax. However if airport tax is a tax, why is it
different for different airlines and for different airports?
What is airport tax
Airport tax is generally defined as a 'fee' charged by various
airports. This fee is charged to the airlines, which pass it along to
each passenger and typically include it in the price of the ticket. The
airport then uses this fee to assist them with maintaining and
upgrading the particular airport. There is also an amount paid to SARS,
and some to a non-profit company jointly owned by all the airlines to
assist with baggage control. However an additional amount is included
in the 'airport tax' category, which is a discretionary fee call a fuel
levy. This fuel levy actually makes up the majority of the airport tax.
The reason why it is bundled in with airport tax and not given its own
section is because when it was implemented (following highly volatile
petrol prices) the system was not designed to hold any additional
categories, and so it was merely added as a tax in with the current
airport tax. Atleast that's what the airlines are saying. The issue
with this is that it has been incorrectly classified as a tax, which
makes it sound like it is a neccesary evil that passengers have to pay,
whereas it is actually a discretionary amount that each airline can
set.
Further, as fuel prices have dropped, the fuel levy bundled into these
airport taxes has actually increased on some airlines.
This shows that most of the fuel levy that we as passengers pay, is
actually pure profit going to the airlines. By bundling it with the
airport tax, these airlines are able to publicise very cheap prices,
which means that the true cost of the flight is only revealed at the
end of the booking process. By that stage most people are already
committed to buying the ticket, and by called it a tax, people feel
that they have to pay this anyways. This is all blatently misleading.
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