Airline taxes

Nowadays everyone uses airlines either to cut on their travel time or due to the prices closeness of second/third class air-conditioned compartments of the Indian railways. This is why the domestic air sector in India is booming. Now due to the large varieties of airlines available the price competition has also become fierce. Due to these, tickets are coming cheap. Ofcourse that is what the advertisements show. Tickets for Zero, 99, 199, 299 etc.. The catch part is the taxes that are paid at the time of purchase of the ticket. Now these prices have risen a lot in the past few years. Just starting this month the tax was increased by Rs 150. Anyways, let me show you how the break-up of the taxes take place. For each ticket one purchases for a journey, the tax collected are divided as follow:

• Passenger Service fee: Rs 225.
• Fuel Surcharge: Rs 1100 (This got increased from 950 since August 2007).
• Transaction surcharge: Rs 100.
• Congestion fee: Rs 150.

Now donot get misled by the word 'Taxes'. People in general will consider that taxes are collected by the government. But in this case, except for the Rs 225 for the passenger service fee which is taken by the Airport Authority of India (AAI), the rest is taken by the airlines. The government still charges 0.62% on the base fare of the ticket. That is if the base fare is Rs 100 then the government gets 62 Paise. Anyways, the one of the reason what the airlines give for the so called taxes are that the Jet Fuel prices are high so Fuel Surcharge is increased. The above break up when added will come to Rs 1575.

When we take the same tax's price list to the International sector, we get the amounts roughly Rs 3600+. Here we have to consider that the charges put by different countries, both the source and destination and also the airports at both places. That is why I have to be mentally prepared before purchasing any ticket after looking at all the awesome dirt cheap prices different airlines offer. So this is what flying is all about.