rcs85551

This went out to TAs in Germany today:

If your ticket is non-refundable, LH will cease the refund of the fuel surcharges (YQs) for tickets issed from March 8th, 2010.

TravellinHusker

Well, until they list it as part of the fare, I don't see how they can legally keep the YQ. When they want to start adding to the fare just the tickets from the US carriers, then they can keep it all. Just one little challenge in court and LH will be wishing they didn't start this slippery slope. Then they will have a choice, start adding the fuel surcharge as part of the fare and lose out on the revenue for award tickets, or refunding all the fuel surcharges on non-ref tickets when they are cancelled.

danielbk

Looking forwards to FlyingLawyers comments on this..

German-FLyer

Me too!

supermasterphil

What's up with LH these days? Everything they touch seems screwy and not thought through until the very end. Yes, they will get away with it at the beginning with all the customers who have no clue but somebody will take them to court at some point and gone is it. It will go through the media and another bad image out there

weero

I very much doubt it. When they get challenged they won't do a thing. And if they loose, they refund this one plaintiff the difference.

Until the day the EU adopts powerful punitive damage legislation - so that the board will fire the manager or accountant who implemented this - compliance is pure luxury and the law helps LH to uphold bad practices.

CalFlyer

I am surprised about this LH move as well, as it clearly documents that the fuel surcharges are, in reality, ticket cost. If I were in their shoes, I would have introduced a handling fee for the reimbursement of the fuel surcharge. But this way, they put their whole fee-model in danger.

moeve

Infact the EU is already on that topic because of airlines like Ryanair but they had decided because the big carriers were not doing it they could hold off from dealing with this problem HOWEVER now LH may have done enough for them to go back into action and I bet they are not going to like any sort of out come if the EU does have to go after them. Ok it will level the playing field again and in all thruth THAT may be exactly what LH is hoping for.

I am however debating if german law will allow them to get away with it because they are deemed by law to keep the damages a small as possible. By the letter of german cancellation law they have to PROVE they couldn't sell the seat and are not allowed to charge for portion not USED. Therefore no passenger who used the security = no charge equiviently no passenger flying = no fuel used. No many will debate but the flight flies anyway well then a court may argue since they get to keep a portion of the flight costs as cancelation that has to cover it OR they will have to prove they could not sell the seat which I am sure will deterr the airlines due to the extra documentation required which in turn will cost them even more.

weero

The court may and can argue all it wants but that will not itch LH too much. In the worst case, they will refund the belligerent customer the surcharges minus their fee. The fairness and the technicality of the legal system sponsor para-criminal behaviour on behalf of the companies.

If RyanAir succeeds they will cease the current approach and then rename some details to go for the next attempt. Even the silly little legal system of Switzerland has learned to deal with carriers orders of magnitude better than the 'more balanced' system of Germany.

jreichel

This is what BA publishes on their homepage for travel agents:

Why are you doing this?

We continue to review the level of the YQ surcharge and the conditions associated with it. Although we have refunded the surcharge on our best value fares in the past, we are no longer able to do this in the current economic climate. We continue to refund all taxes paid to Government and Airport authorities.

The surcharge is part of the fare, but is shown separately so we can be transparent with our customers. This does not mean that the applicable conditions of the fare do not apply to it.

Other airlines have already implemented this change.

Why do you not include it as part of your fare?

Fuel as the major part of YQ remains extremely volatile so we keep it separate to the fare at the moment.

Including the YQ surcharge into the fare would also be problematic for the leisure travel trade at this stage as it is logistically difficult for some of them to manage – they would have to update their rates sheets every time it was amended. We are working with the leisure trade to implement greater levels of automation with regards the rates sheets.

Will you continue to refund taxes fees and charges?

We will continue to refund charges payable to third parties e.g. Government and Airport Authorities, but fuel is an integral part of the cost of the fare.

And this is LH's text (sorry, only in German):

Neue Regelung zur Erstattung des Treibstoff- und Sicherheitszuschlags (YQ) bei
nicht erstattbaren Tarifen:

Neben dem Preisbestandteil Nettoflugpreis wird für Verkäufe ab 08. März 2010 der
Treibstoff- uns Sicherheitszuschlag (YQ) von Lufthansa nicht mehr erstattet.
Lufthansa passt sich mit dieser neuen Erstattungsregelung zahlreichen
Wettbewerbern an, die bereits ähnliche Regelungen praktizieren. Gleichzeitig
erfolgt dadurch eine noch stärkere Differenzierung der Tarife im Hinblick auf Ihre
Buchungsbedingungen.

Am I the only one who thinks that airlines should make up their minds? If the "fuel surcharge" is part of the fare it does not belong into the tax box!

Lack

I'm curious if someone made notice of the YQ changes throught a year/years. Would make a quite interesting definition of "extremely volatile" I guess.

Aren't they by law obligged to quote the full ticket price anyway (ie. with the fuel charge included), so have to change the sheets on the same "extremely volatile" basis?

That would jeopardize the whole mystery behind flying! Maybe next time they would come ofter the fare rules confusion etc?

NewbieRunner

If the surcharge is part of the fare why can't it be applied consistently based either on the base fare or the distance flown adjusted if necessarily accoroding to COS?

I recently spent some time checking discounted Economy fares between MAN and ORD in April, via DUS outbound and via MUC or FRA inbound. For exactly the same flights on 3 consecutive days the fare/YQ differences in GBP are as follows.

I can only conclude that YQ is used to achieve the overall price LH want to charge.

bertheike

Airlines can write what ever them want into them FAQ's. If it is legal is a different shoe.
LH ( and nearly every carrier ) try to squeeze out the customers, and only a very low no. of them even complain or even go to court with them.
And that's the reason, why them come away with that.
If everyone takes them to court, them would never come away with this.
For myselve Iam doing this, and until now I not lost in anything ^ .
But to many people are destinterested or only whining and never do anything

SebFra

Just some time ago they started charging 30 Euros as "handling fee" for these cheap tickets.

Now they start with this stupid stuff....

It is just a question of consistency: if it is part of the fare, they should put it on top of the fare...

But in this case, I dont want to spend this money for award tickets as well.... Because in this case the miles do not pay for the whole fare- which is not logical.

Lufthansa is just becoming more and more customer - un - friendly.

By the way: My Air Berlin status match worked out. So Lufthansa shall go on like this! Maybe they can even fly with empty planes - it saves them a lot of fuel!!!

rrgg

I never understood why there's not more outrage about paying YQ on awards. So naturally if LH feels they're getting away with that, they'll try this new policy on refunds.