Fees on European airfares
 

How can I find out how much all junk fees will be on flights to Europe? Are they the same for all airlines?

The only way to know for sure is to choose a flight on whichever site you are checking and go through the booking process till the total price is shown. Fees depend on all sorts of things, including whether there are connections, and which airports the flights go through.

Input the flight at www.kayak.com, you get the full quote long before you would have to make a booking. But Kayak only shows, it does not sell, so if you need to know to the penny and up-to-date, click through and get to the site where you actually would make the purchase - if anything has changed between the airline posting at kayak and your arrival at the site, you will see it, again with all fees.

Hi D,

Why do you care?

The only thing that is important is the final cost, and that you will find only by selecting a flight.

www.kayak.com and www.mobissimo.com give you the total price.

((I))

They do all differ but can tend to be less on low cost airlines, funnily enough.

If the headline rate says £0, the extras might be c.£10-20 on a low cost airline but c.£50-60 on a trad airline.

Just looked at some "£0" flights from Edinburgh to London on bmi's wsebsite, but the extras added up to £116 for 2 :-(

Many of the taxes are the same for all airlines -- security charge, civil aviation fee, etc. The main differences come from airport taxes (low cost carriers choose airports with low fees & taxes) and fuel surcharges. Especially regarding fuel surcharges, airlines can creatively vary these at will and claim that it is not part of the fare. Ha ha.

Here are a couple of pull-down tables that show country and carrier taxes/fees. The list is not complete re all low cost carriers, and some fuel surcharges may be different than shown, but I find it very useful in "ballparking" th extras. Remember fees are cumulative so you can have security, airport, fuel, "war" and several other fees/taxes/annoyances added to your final ticket.

http://www.consolidatedtravel.com.au/qf/taxes.asp

All...thanks for the tips on the other sites.

Ira...I don't really care what the fees are...I just want the bottom line...or approximate. When one reads the fine print on some of these airline websites, it is not clear if the quoted prices are all inclusive or if you'll get whacked with hundreds more dollars of junk fees.

For instance..Fly Cheap Abroad has this notice:
NOT INCLUDED:
- Airport departure or entry taxes not included in ticket taxes. Passengers must pay in cash on location.
Just don't want any huge surprises.

Hi Deb,

You have to select the flight and then you will get the full fare.

I have found that www.kayak.com and www.mobissimo.com search engines _almost_ always come up with the best fares, or very close.

((I))

Some airports (fewer and fewer, thank god) do apply a departure fee that will never be in the ticket fare. You have to pay cash to leave cities like Bangkok, Phnom Penh or Saigon. I don't know of any European airports that still apply this system.

Deb, some airports charge a departure fee--mostly, Asian countries. I used flycheapabroad.com for Europe and had no trouble. We're using them again.