Inside today The cost of flying
Just what are those extra fees for?
This was only ever going to go one way. An argument with a (corrupt) border official in broken Spanglish at 4am midway through a night bus trip from Mexico into Belize. He demands $50 departure tax. I maintain the levy had already been paid within my return airfares in and out of Mexico City. Round and round we will go as the queue behind me lengthens.
Except, tonight by some stroke of good luck or good rostering, the corrupt border official is having a day off and instead a bleary-eyed officer stamps our passports. No issues, no border bust-ups. All that imaginary argument preparation for nothing!
This was an exception to the norm, I’m repeatedly told during our time in Central America. Some travellers just pay up, others kick up a fuss and still pay. One smug Yank told me he asked for a receipt and was instead waved through without a dollar note being exchanged. It’s not hard to guess whose pocket these extra fees go into, but what about the legitimate and ever-present taxes, fees and levies hiding in your airfare?
The actual fare, once all these fees and levies are passed on by airlines to the relevant authorities, can be only a small portion. If you see the breakdown, it’s not hard to fathom why so many carriers go bust, such are their wafer-thin profit margins at times. The official airport departure tax for those leaving New Zealand from Auckland International was ‘‘scrapped’’ more than decade ago, but was really just replaced with a passenger service levy slapped on airlines using the terminal (for arrivals and departures) and was passed on to flyers in their ticket prices. This is the modus operandi for all border, airport and Customs fees nowadays: airlines are charged and they pass on most if not all of these costs in your airfare at the time of booking.
As an example of just the sheer numbers and codes corresponding to various levies and taxes, a return flight from Auckland to London via Shanghai and Hong Kong has more than half a dozen items listed to ‘‘clip the ticket’’, equating to more than $300 in extra charges per person.
The largest of these is a departure tax out of the UK, which adds around $150 to the ticket (and a reason why it’s often cheaper to depart via another European hub). New Zealand passenger service and security levies came to a combined total of $49.92, some of which covers the Aviation Security Service, although there’s also the $20.11 international border clearance levy which helps fund NZ Customs and Biosecurity New Zealand.
A friendly border agent once cleaned my hiking boots after a trip to Southeast Asia, deeming them a biosecurity risk, so I’ll just treat that $20 as a generous tip. The Hong Kong security levy was about half the price of New Zealand’s equivalent, but the Shanghai airport service fee was similar, at $19.50. Another was the $31 airport construction fee, to pay for Hong Kong’s third runway.
The Brits clip the ticket again, with an airport service fee of just over $30 for using Heathrow and Gatwick respectively, queues are almost certain at both. Obviously, the fees, taxes and levies portion of your airfare depends on your route (routes via the US include the TSA charge to pay for a thorough body security scan). The above hypothetical is based on but one option.
On top of all these, Air New Zealand (somewhat bafflingly in this day) slaps on an extra levy of $17.50 a person one-way if you choose to pay for your flight with a credit card, which in the case of its cheapest trans-Tasman hops could be almost 10 per cent added to the cost of your flight.
In short, these fees and taxes are for all of those lovely things about travel that we may like to whinge about, but keep us safe and our borders secure, from air traffic controllers keeping the world’s busiest airports running smoothly, to baggage scanners and bossy biosecurity staff telling you to remove your shoes and boots.
These airports and government departments ping the airlines and, in turn, the airlines ping you, but burying them within your ticket price sure beats a border crossing argument in some developing country at 4am.