In the past I haven't either, but several days ago on ctrip I thought I spotted some fares that used the RMB 200 tax rate, but seemed to be journeys under 800 km. I was looking idly at a bunch of things so can't recall specifics and didn't take notes. When I have a bit of time in the next day or so, I'll poke around and see if I can find them again, and also check flight distance in case my gut is wrong and the journey is longer than I thought, and thus a legitimate RMB 200 tax/fee.

07:10
08:25
首都国际机场
桃仙国际机场
中国国航ca1601
机型：738经济舱
¥5608.0折/h
所有价格退改签

机建＋燃油：50＋80元 | 飞行时间：1小时15分

That RMB 80 fuel would be right, as Beijing-Shenyang flight distance is under 800 km. But that definitely wasn't one of the city pairs I was looking at.

I would be interested to see your example. IME, this stuff is super transparent:

-fares are based on distance (slight premium/km for really short flights)
-discounts are clearly labeled
-"50+x" is always disclosed

Flying around China isn't cheap anymore, but I fail to see any deception.

That's 1300 km and 2+ hours... Long, definitely.

I would be surprised and I agree with moondog. This scenario seems totally impossible; like being charged the train ticket price to Shanghai when just going to Jinan.
I strongly assume that taxes are linked to the fixed Y/C/F prices - i.e. they come from the central authorities. If your agent overcharges, at least the ticket will be issued correctly, which is enough to challenge your agent.

I would say a true FT-er never pays YQ. ^:D

Wait... we can trick off the YQ tax?

I'm pretty sure he was joking. If there is a way to dump YQ on Chinese flights, I'm guessing the tickets would have to be issued on foreign stock and therefore, full fare only.

I was looking at the following flights, all of which my gut told me were under 800 km:
SHA-CSX, CSX-NNG, NNG-KMG, DLU (Dali)-CGK. The NNG-KMG segment has the total tax/fuel at RMB 130 short journey level, others all at RMB 200. After checking back with multiple different flight distance sources to try to get an unbiased picture, I came up with:
SHA-CSX is over 800 km (about 880)--my gut was wrong--so that's a legit RMB 200.
CSX-NNG is under 800 km (around 770-790 from multiple sources), so my gut was right, and the Chinese are "rounding up" to 800 and collecting higher tax.
NNG-KMG is well under 800 km and RMB 130 level is correct.
DLU-CGK is under 800 km (770)--again, my gut was right--so Chinese are again "rounding up" and collecting the RMB 200 level.

Perhaps the distance map they are using is one with Chinese characteristics? :p Clearly, they are taking advantage of the closeness to the breakpoint to assess the higher tax.

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I strongly assume that distance is based in actual distance travelled - just like flight and train prices - and not on the shortest distance on the 'great circle'.

Possibly, but I did try to look at airport-to-airport distances. There should be a fixed benchmark somewhere! How else would you define "actual distance travelled?" Heck, I suppose you can add plenty of km to any flight distance depending on which direction you take off from the runway, number of loops in the holding pattern waiting for landing, diverting around weather, etc.

I guess I'm just tired of making and hearing excuses for Chinese chiseling--in all sorts of matters. The fuel tax breakpoint of 800 km is stupid on the face of it. Fuel is a direct function of distance, so with Chinese base ticket prices themselves based on km distance, it makes more sense to levy fuel YQ as a % of base ticket price.

I must admit that jiejie's counterexample flummoxed me. While I won't completely discount your "distance flown" hypothesis, that flies in the face of all conventional practices.

My guess is that a low level employee of CAAC (or whatever it's called these days) made a mistake (i.e. it wouldn't surprise me if that person had a stack of 1,000+ routes to review and simply eyeballed it because he was getting tired) a few years back and misreported the distance between CSX and NNG.

I will try to follow up on this the next time I meet my well-connected aviation guy in Beijing... primarily for the benefit of our curiosity, but all the better if we can save CSX-NNG travelers a buck or two.

I haven't tried, but wouldn't be surprised if you could...

The flying is not cheap, but there are some mid-week deals with 4 day advance purchase.

I fly a triangle trip next week; PEK-HGH-CGO-PEK (BJ > Hangzhou > Zhengzhou > BJ ) the total of the 3 tickets with tax was only 2020 rmb.
The combined airport tax & fuel surcharges is 580 rmb, or 29 %..

And on one of the CZ flights, i did get a W fare !.

W fares are sweet. Better cabin, full MQM's on ST airlines, fast check in. My secret tip is to watch elong, they often have discounted W fares for cheaper than their mid fare tiers sometimes. Don't know why only elong has it, never seen it on travelzen or ctrip.