Originally Posted by
pinks
Chile imposes ridiculously high fees on flights. I had looked at Easter Island tickets using BA miles on LAN, and flights that went through Chile had 3x as much fees compared to flights routed through Peru. I think it was $600 vs. $200. I'm guessing that is what you are seeing; it has nothing to do with fuel.
Having just recently flown LAN to Santiago and Easter Island, I didn't see this. But Copa has, however, begun adding significant fuel surcharges to its tickets to Santiago (and others departing from MEX), and their price breakdown is very clear that it's being called a "fuel surcharge", not any sort of gov't fee or tax.
A MEX-SCL RT in Sept shows taxes coming out to $90, whether Copa or LAN. For MEX-SCL-IPC (LAN only), the taxes come to $121.