Originally Posted by tomh009
Yes ... except that the fuel surcharges on those tickets are a far bigger proportion on AC than on other airlines. And most of those other airlines don't make people pay the fuel surcharges on reward tickets anyway.
It doesn't mean that they won't start tomorrow. And don't forget, as airlines bleed and beg for cash, they will be looking for other ways to find the dough to keep them alive. And already, some (actually many) carriers are raising fuel surcharges on non-revenue tickets. BA is a good example.
Originally Posted by tomh009
With oil at below $40 a barrel, a return ticket to LIM looks like this:
Now, if airplanes were fuelled with normal 87 octane gasoline, that would be a completely fair comment. Except if you try filling a plane with that, you might run into a few problems. All to say, the price of Jet-A fuel is significantly higher than $40 a barrel...
Now, many of the airlines also locked in their Jet-A fuel prices a bit higher -- or a lot higher in some instances (LOT was [in hindsight] dumb and locked it in at >$110US so they will be really crying for a LONG time. AC and WS locked in at higher than today's prices obviously). So airlines (and at the end of the day, pax) will be overpaying the gas bill until those contracts end.