Airlines charge all kinds of taxes and fees on tickets, some of which are government mandated, and others of which are carrier imposed. One of Europe’s largest airline groups will shortly be adding a new environmental surcharge to tickets, which is sure to be controversial.
In this post:
Details of Lufthansa’s new environmental ticket surcharge
For tickets issued as of June 26, 2024, and for travel as of January 1, 2025, Lufthansa Group is adding a new environmental cost surcharge to tickets.
This applies to all flights departing from any country in the European Union, Great Britain, Norway, and Switzerland. It also applies on all Lufthansa Group airlines, including Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian, Brussels, Eurowings, Air Dolomiti, Discover, Edelweiss, Lufthansa City, and Lufthansa CityLine (does Lufthansa have enough airline brands?!).
The new surcharge will be per segment, and you can find the pricing below. As you can see, it starts as low as $1 in economy on a short haul flight, and goes up to $72 in first class on a long haul flight.
The exact surcharge amount will be displayed during the last step of the booking process, in the price details. For revenue tickets, presumably this means that fares will suddenly increase marginally, based on the above amounts.
I’m curious if this is also passed on for award tickets, for situations where a program doesn’t usually pass on carrier imposed surcharges. I suspect not, but who knows…
What does Lufthansa’s new environmental surcharge cover?
As Lufthansa describes it, this new environmental cost surcharge covers additional costs from legislative environmental regulations, such as the new SAF (Sustainable Aviation Fuel) mandate by the European Union (“ReFuelEU Aviation”), adaptations of the European ETS (“Emission Trading System”) scheme, and other regulatory costs.
For travel as of 2025, there are indeed some new environmental initiatives being mandated by the government, which will cost airlines some money.
It’s fair enough that trying to make air travel more environmentally friendly comes at a cost, and that ultimately that cost will be passed on to consumers in some way. I think what’s frustrating to people is that this is now yet another surcharge that airlines add on to a ticket cost.
As far as I’m concerned, just charge what you’re going to charge, and call it a day. A lot of costs in the airline industry have gone up over the years, but each increase doesn’t need to be broken down for the consumer to see. For example, there’s no “increased labor cost surcharge” on tickets, even though that’s a significantly higher cost for most airlines.
I suspect the strategy here is twofold. First of all, it’s probably to remind consumers of the costs airlines deal with, to make airlines seem like they’re not pocketing as much. Furthermore, I imagine there could be some cost advantage here, whether it’s the surcharge not being taxed, or travel agents not getting a commission on that portion of the ticket.
Bottom line
For tickets issued as of June 26, and for travel as of 2025, Lufthansa Group tickets are subject to a new environmental surcharge, ranging from $1 to $72 per segment. Lufthansa Group justifies this by arguing that new environmental regulations are being introduced in 2025, so the airline is passing on these costs to consumers.
To me, it seems like this should just be bundled into the fare, and we should call it a day. But I guess Lufthansa Group is taking the same approach here as with “fuel surcharges.”
What do you make of Lufthansa’s new environmental surcharge?
For a moment, I thought it was a mandatory offset program. That would be somewhat more tolerable. But it's just a "We have some increased costs so we're going to pass them on to you, but we won't quote it as part of the ticket cost but instead make up some scam category for it" fee.
What a con, is every flight going to powered by some SAF? Will the customer get a refund if the actual flight you are on is AvGas only (probably every long haul flight into Germany as SAF basically unavailable outside Europe.
It is just another tax dressed up as holy green crap.
No. France and Sweden have these rules already. In France, there’s a 1 percent average SAF requirement. The EU starts at 2 percent and goes up to 6 percent in 2030. Whether your individual flight is has SAF is irrelevant, you’re subsidising other flights or your flight is behind heavily subsidised by thousands of other passengers. 2 percent isn’t a lot and SAF is expensive and as you mentioned has constraints for most of LH’s network.
Fantastic idea! I think all businesses should do this. Buy a car get environmental surcharge of 5%. Tell consumer it will help global warming! Buy ham and eggs get s 10% environmental surcharge to stop global warming. Those Germans are brilliant. No wonder they followed Hitler. Trump should call his 10% import tax an environmental fee. Right wing loves anything Trump does. Long live the Fatherland
Lufthansa sucks anyway
Reminds me of Spirit Airlines' $2 "unintended consequences of DOT Regulation" fee.
Similar to ULCC ...
I suspect they're testing the German and European governments' tolerance at scam fees. Scam pricing is generally not allowed in Europe, but regulators also seem to give more leeway to green initiatives. LH certainly has a secondary angle here.
Scam pricing refers to showing one price at first and then adding fees later. That's not what Lufthansa is doing. In Europe, the final price must be displayed from the very first moment and nothing is changing about this.
Those pseudo-eco-friendly policies do nothing but make people want to stop caring about the environment.
Are using paper straws and reusable bags supposed to protect the nature, when some hypocrites like Taylor Swift are traveling on their private jets more than necessarily, after saying that they will fight against the climate change?
That's the great petrol lie of our age. "The world is suffering pollution and it's your fault. Be sure to recycle plastic (90% of it is trash and not recycled), pay plastic bag fees (just goes to tax authorities, hopefully to environmental causes.)"
There's no responsibility on businesses to stop using cheap packaging and bags made of petrol. Just shame your customers.
keep drinking that kool aide pal,...really brainwashed here
Where in Europe do bag fees go to the government? Over here the business gets to keep them. The goal isn't to increase revenue or finance some eco projects, the goal is to make people not use plastic bags and create the problem in the first place.
I hope they will stop asking at the end of the booking process, if I am willing to pay a small additional fee for some "environmental" things. I think Swiss did this sometimes, if I remember correctly.
In the US, DOT requires all-in pricing, which means that the fare you see must include all taxes and surcharges. A 2023 ruling by the European Court of Justice similarly requires airlines to display all-in pricing. So either LH Group will have to reduce its fares to negate the impact of this fee, or take a competitive hit.
It's really just a way to increase public pressure, Ryanair has been doing this kind of stuff for years. Ultimately, it won't affect the total price, because total price is whatever market is willing to pay. Lufthansa - and any other airline for that matter - will always charge the highest fare they can get away with without losing revenue. It's not going to work, btw, most people just look at the total price and never bother with the fees breakdown.
Another profit maker in the form of the climate change grift. Notice said grift won't apply to private jet travel.
It’s the same reason Ryanair charges an EC261 fee: To passively protest to the EU that regulation gets past onto the consumer. Air France has had this fee for a while now and if i recall correctly emailed their members about it. CEO Ben Smith says that the regulatory environment in Europe is unfair and so these types of actions are designed to say « see, we are passing these costs onto European consumers ». It’s only...
It’s the same reason Ryanair charges an EC261 fee: To passively protest to the EU that regulation gets past onto the consumer. Air France has had this fee for a while now and if i recall correctly emailed their members about it. CEO Ben Smith says that the regulatory environment in Europe is unfair and so these types of actions are designed to say « see, we are passing these costs onto European consumers ». It’s only a matter of time before the low costs do it as well, if they haven’t already.
I bet that the airlines in Europe don’t care for the surcharge either. There is no revenue for the airline and it inflates the actual cost of a ticket. And for the silly people that don’t notice how rapidly the planet is warming, there is something seriously wrong with you!
If the EU makes it more expensive for LH to operate, then they have to pass on the cost in some way. Any business owner should get this. Its best to best transparent in this way, but I agree that all these add ons are ridiculous.
I was booking at parking spot at YUL and the charges includes tax and a fuel surcharge. for a parking spot! Thought that was nuts.
That's not how it works. If people were willing to pay say 20€ more, Lufthansa would already be charging 20€ more on the fare itself. Ultimately you have to offer a final price that enough people are willing to pay for, no matter what fees, taxes and other nonsense make up that price.
So your solution is to just raise prices and let people assume it's LH raising margins? The point of adding a surcharge is to get people to think its the EU's fault prices are going up. Call it marketing or what ever, but its a very comon practice in many industries.
This is bu!!$h!t. How are we supposed to take Lufthansa seriously when they make greenwashing weasel moves like this?
Boo, hoo.
A salient and intelligent retort.
Lufthansa has nothing to do with the surcharge. The EU made it so.
Re @T-: No, it didn't. There is no such surcharge charged by government as evidenced by the fact that most European airlines don't charge it. Lufthansa is simply converting part of the fare into a separate item on the fees breakdown to create political pressure. That's all.
Wait, you were taking Lufthansa seriously?!
Touche.
Disgusting.
The great news is that Lufthansa is a terrible airline these days, so this is just another reason to avoid that clown airline.
The problem is if other airlines follow suit...
Why does this sound like a dicey charge ? Why are other European airlines not having to impose these charges ?
AFKLM has been charging it for over a year… France and Sweden had rules before the EU.
WSJ has an articled on this topic in today's paper.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-u-s-and-europe-cant-agree-on-what-counts-as-sustainable-aviation-fuel-thats-leaving-investors-in-a-bind-a9bf9843
will be interesting to see how many people bail out of the booking process when they see these fees added and go to other airlines - some of which are certain not to add their own "environmental" fees
No one? It’s the law that the price shown include all taxes and fees I doubt many people are sticker shocked at the end of the booking process when you’ve seen the price. Air France charges this fee as well and yet i’ve consistently seen some Air France fares lower than Lufthansa and vice versa. There are a million fees and taxes and honestly no one really is doing an analysis of them when booking
Feel free to quote from my reply and use the word ‘no one’.
It’s. Not. There.
I think you misread Mika's comment -- they were not quoting you, they were replying "no one [will bail out]."
no one? like I live in NY and when I was to pass a bridge to go to Manhattan and pass EZ-Pass (back when they were gates), I didn’t just u-turn and nope out.
Ok but that’s not the same? Most people go on google flights, see the « all in » pricing and move ahead. It’s not like it says the ticket is $100 and then when you go to pay it’s $101. It’s $101, and maybe competitors are $110 dollars and so regardless it makes sense to book LH.
Always surprising that there are some right-wing nutcases who read your blog. I guess losers need to read at some point too.
Good that they have regulations. They probably don't fold it into the ticket price because it makes it easier to do math.
This is why we need more regulation, not less. The airlines are battling Washington to be able to advertise fares without these made up junk fees, which they would like to tack on at the very end, after you click on pay.
The entire "climate change" industry is one giant grift.
Don't confuse the corporate greed on display here with actual climate change initiatives, which the planet desperately needs.
Actually you forgot another Lufthansa subsidiary, the vacation airline subsidiary Sunexpress, albeit a joint venture with Turkish Airlines.
If I cancel a nonrefundable fare, I get back taxes etc. . Will this surcharge also be refunded?
One wonders: Why not just raise the ticket price?
When is Carsten Spohr going to impose a bodyguard cost recovery fee?
Pure and simple : " . . . just charge what you’re going to charge, and call it a day. A lot of costs in the airline industry have gone up over the years, but each increase doesn’t need to be broken down for the consumer to see. For example, there’s no “increased labor cost surcharge” on tickets . . . "
The local baseball team recently had a promotion in which they offered to sell tickets at list price, i.e. without tacking on a cascading litany of fees. Given the average attendance at games, I suspect they'd be wise to consider more drastic measures...
Anyways, point being, as long as entities (airlines, baseball teams, ticketmaster, etc.) can get away with these games, they'll keep playin' them.