Oil prices will raise fares this year
Rising oil prices will affect fares for flights, cruises and even public transit in 2011. Credit: AFP / Getty Images File, 2006
Travelers to Europe this year are discovering unwelcome ride-alongs: new and heftier surcharges for flights and cruises. They may even pay more to get to their U.S. airport. Blame the rising price of oil, driven by widening world demand and Mideast turmoil, for much of this pain.
Here's a look at what you may find as you head to Europe:
FLIGHTS In the past few months, British Airways has twice raised its fuel surcharges, and other European carriers also have raised theirs.
"A fuel surcharge is a fancy way of making an airfare hike," says Rick Seaney, chief executive of the travel website FareCompare.com. "Summer airfares to Europe are running as high as I've seen in four or five years."
Depending on the flight, the fuel surcharge for trans-Atlantic trips can be higher than the base fare. A New York City-London round-trip in April, recently priced on British Airways' website, totaled $760.77, including the $225 base fare, $316 fuel surcharge and $219.77 in taxes and fees.
What to do? "The best strategy for a consumer is to play the seasonal pricing game," Seaney says. "Try to go off the beaten path." Trans-Atlantic fares usually stay low for flights through March or April before zooming upward in late spring and summer, the peak travel times.
CRUISES Citing higher fuel prices, Cunard Line in February increased its daily fuel supplement to $9 from $6 for each passenger. The charge is capped at $300 a person a voyage. Swan Hellenic Discovery Cruising and Voyages of Discovery, British lines that focus on small-ship trips, imposed a daily $6-a-person fuel supplement for certain new bookings made Feb. 1 or later. Some other European lines have such a charge, too.
Although most major cruise lines that market to Americans are not collecting fuel supplements, that could change.
PUBLIC TRANSIT Both New York City and Los Angeles County in the last year have raised fares for buses and subways, as have many other urban areas. In U.S. cities, the average cost of public transportation in January was up nearly 8 percent from the same month last year, as measured by the U.S. Department of Labor's Consumer Price Index.
