All Nippon Airways (ANA) has just considerably lowered fuel surcharges for bookings as of April 1, 2023, which is good news for passengers (especially those redeeming miles through programs that pass on these surcharges).
Continue reading: All Nippon Airways Adjusts Fuel Surcharges (Award Implications)
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Can we dispense with the notion that surcharges could conceivably have a rational connection to fuel costs? They have always been a cynical cash grab, nothing else. A 777 loads tons and tons of paying cargo and passengers for a flight. How much of the fuel is one passenger responsible for? If fuel price triples, now how much is one passenger responsible for? $25? $30? Please, can we just stop discussing these charges as if theoretically, hypothetically they could make sense? I call them ScamCharges and I wish thinking people would do the same. BTW no carrier refers to them as "fuel" surcharges any more.
@ DenB -- I hear you in general, but:
a) ANA is one of the few airlines to at least actually link these surcharges to some sort of fuel index, so that's better than not doing that (like British Airways, which has $800 surcharges no matter what the price is)
b) ANA *does* refer to these as fuel surcharges, see here: https://www.ana.co.jp/en/us/plan-book/fare-rules/
Can we dispense with the notion that tips and gratuities could conceivably have a rational connection to service? They have always been a cynical cash grab, nothing else.
Like many other broken system the public allows it to go on, we just have to suck it up.
Just booked an ANA ticket on Aeroplan due to fuel surcharge in the big picture, ugh!
I booked an award flight in December. Is it possible to get some sort of credit now that this has changed?
JAL works the same way, they are required to do so by law in Japan. It might be a good point to introduce similar laws in other countries. Though I believe that BA has stopped calling it fuel surcharges, and just take the money anyway as surcharges.
Avoiding all Russian airspace at the expense of increased fuel consumption is the ultimate form of irrational virtue signaling. Makes sense to avoid Ukraine and surrounding airspace, but to avoid entire Russian airspace is totally illogical for many long haul flights. ME3 continues using it for US west coast flights. This doesn't hurt Russia in any manner and forces the airline to spend more and pollute more. Way to go!
I don’t know if it’s “virtue signalling.” Perhaps airlines don’t want to risk losing their aircraft in increasingly-lawless Russia (whether that’s from being shot down MH17 style or from having planes forced to land so that Russian authorities can arrest a single passenger on the plane or whatever). Or perhaps airlines have internal consumer data showing most passengers prefer flights that don’t fly over Russia. Capitalism usually means we trust companies to make their own decisions regarding how they operate - why don’t you trust airlines to decide for themselves which countries they’re willing to fly over?
I appreciate that they are pushing the savings due to gas prices starting to come down slightly on to the consumer. I disagree with the Russian airspace comment. If the airline needs to travel out of their way this should be pushed to the consumer rather than the airline incurs the cost. It is not the airline's problem they cannot use it.
If flights were already booked with the higher fuel costs, any strategy or chance of any type of refund?
hi
is there any way to avoid such high YQ? maybe an ANA connection flight to a third place? like ORD-Tokyo two airports - PVG shanghai?
I just ran a search for business class flight from LAX to ICN for two in business class for October, 2023. The surcharge total came out to be 215,560 in Yen. When converted to US Dollar, it is a whopping $1603, which basically is $800 per person. This shocking discovery does not reconcile with your charge matrix. I am just glad I did not transfer my AMX point to ANA first. Am I doing something wrong?