Qatar Airways CEO Says To Expect More Fuel Surcharges

There RT Biz class is already $750 more then everyone else ORD-DEL, plus zero award availability. I can't believe they are able to fill there planes given the embargo, lack of codeshares and higher costs then others.

Qatar owns the oil wells and owns the airline. The surcharges have nothing to do with cost of oil as its wholesale prices for them. It is using fee to makeup in other areas.

It really gets me that fuel surcharges never went away when the fuel price was so low and now it’s on the rise again the surcharges will just start to increase, where does it end?!

Does any of this have to do with taxation? Are the "fare" prices taxed while the "surcharges" aren't? How does this work for US carriers? EU carriers? ME3 carriers? It might make for an interesting post if anyone has information about it.

Dude, you are crazy.

Look up price taker and price setter in economics. And then think how airlines would behave?

I’m and economist, and your assessment is correct. If their fuel surcharge goes up and their prices become less competitive, their revenue and profits would fall.

Btw, it isn’t a tax thing. US federal aviation excise tax is on the entire ticket price, which includes all surcharges and fees that must be paid. Baggage fees don’t attract tax, because they aren’t mandatory.

Raise those prices too much and they'll have alot of empty seats.

If it isn’t a tax angle, besides award tickets, what’s the difference between increasing fares and fuel surcharges.

@ Matt
“Qatar owns the oil wells”

Qatar doesn’t have oil. Its wealth is based on the world’s largest reserves of natural gas (that’s the invisible stuff, not the petroleum products that American refer to as “gas”).

@Lucky
“If all airlines are losing a ton of money, airlines will go out of business”

Unless they’re the US3, in which case they just pop down to the local court, go through Ch.11, then emerge as if nothing has happened.

Paul qatars most revenue come from oil not gas even though they are one of the largest gas exports in the world

Lucky I mostly agree with your assessment and fuel charges are a joke and I still don't understand why governments are not getting involved in this. However your simple assessment of price assumes free entry to the market but that is not true in the airline industry

Al Baker once said he would eliminate fuel charges but the airline didn't so my guess is that he thought Qr eliminated fuel charges back then but revenue management did not. Not sure if he was informed by rm but his comment now might be because of that confusion

Its 100% PR management. Do we really expect them to say, "Sorry, we are losing a lot of money in other areas, so we want to charge more where we see there is a demand and where we are slightly better than others."
Of course, compared to airlines such as US3 / BA / LH, their Q suites are better and popular - so no wonder they are milking their cash cow.
But isnt this standard across industries? Apple charging 200-300% for additional storage on iphones, ipads etc. The difference is other industries are transparent in their pricing and airlines try to make it complex to avoid their brand image taking a hit.

Airline pricing is a mess

There are so many things that don’t make sense.

It almost always costs more to buy a round trip ticket from A to B, than the exact same round trip ticket from B to A. (Eg flights ex Europe vs ex US)

It often costs less to fly A to B to C... than just A to B (eg hidden ticket strategies)

If I could charge $1,000 to fly to A... But only $500 to fly to B. Then I’d put bigger planes or more routes to A. But not Airlines.

It’s one of many reasons why the LCC airlines are doing so well

Then again, we see stupid pricing everywhere. “Resort fees” and “convenience fees” and “administrative fees”
Don’t even get me started on my cell phone bill or mortgage fees

Ticketmaster showed everyone else the way...

i used to work in the shipping industry, and they do the same. The container lines are particularly imaginative. Examples include, but are not limited, to:
Fuel surcharges (will typically vary based on a formula)
Currency adjustment (as above)
Peak surcharge
Panama/Suez transit
ISPS (security fee)
Cargo handling fee
Storage fee (you typically get a few days of free storage at each port)
Over height
Over weight
Hazardous cargo fee
Congestion fee (some ports are congested and cause delays)
Documentation fee
Transshipment fee
Special handling fee
Etc, etc

I have actually seen container lines have a negative base price (ie they pay the customer), but the net price will be positive. I can also confirm that any transportation business takes a massive hit when fuel prices go up, hence they need to recover a part of that extra cost somehow.