Were they airline staff travelling on staff tickets ("airline people")? If so whatever they paid won't be relevant to the rest of us.

Some airlines do collect this when upgrading, so it's not completely irrelevant.

rkkwan,
Are you saying CO doesn't pass this on?

The airline should pass it on, but it should be charged to a credit card on file when the upgrade clears. Not demanding cash at the airport. That's why I wonder how they were upgraded.

Hey Patty, It was delta miles on a continental flight. We are also one pass members but had our points on delta.

girlonthego - I don't see how and why you need to pay anything at the airport.

I think you had to pay because Delta's computers are SCREWED UP.

I had a FF ticket a year ago where they charged me $10 in taxes. Luckily I had read on www.flyertalk.com that Delta has this issue so I went to one of the last remaining Delta ticket offices (That is now closed :( ) and had them deal with it. They had to call and get someone to manually do the tax calculation etc.... Not fun!

Taxes and fuel surcharges are changing so fast these days that it is becoming more and more common to be charged extra at check-in. If you read the fine print on your transportation contract, you will discover that this is perfectly normal.

rkkkwan, the OP says "these are all airline people" which I take to mean "employees travelling on the company's freebie plan". In that case, there IS a charge at CDG for departure and those amounts are about what we have paid when flying on DD's FA perks.

girlonthego,
You won't have to pay anything extra at CDG with a Skymiles ticket either.

CarolA,
You're more honest than me ;) I just let it go and waited to see if they'd collect the additional taxes somewhere along the way, but it never happened.