Airfares: Airlines play tricks with 'strange' surcharges

Passengers buy tickets at an airline agent in Ho Chi Minh City - Photo: TTD

Many people suggest that it is necessary to re-evaluate the fare structure and seriously consider finding a solution to harmonize interests and promote air travel and tourism.

There are "strange" surcharges

According to the survey, some airlines also "create" a rather strange additional cost when customers pay for tickets online - that is the utility fee of 54,000 VND/ticket. This fee will appear when customers pay by credit card, each way is 54,000 VND, round trip is more than 100,000 VND.

Not everyone knows about this fee, like Mr. TH (Hanoi) who was surprised when the strange fee was pointed out, even though he continuously bought tickets without paying attention.

"I often buy tickets online because the airline advertises better deals or promotions. But if I deduct the money like that, the customer basically doesn't benefit," said Mr. H.

Last week, the Minister of Finance affirmed that taxes and fees collected on airline tickets are "very small". The taxes and fees that passengers are currently paying, except for VAT, are not included in the Law on Fees and Charges and are not paid to the state budget. Instead, they belong to aviation services and are collected according to regulations of the Ministry of Transport. And while waiting for all parties to cut costs and reduce taxes and fees, air travelers still have to pay very high ticket prices.

It is worth mentioning that there are quite strange surcharges issued by airlines that anchor very high prices. Many surcharges are set by default by airlines such as system surcharges, baggage, insurance, payment fees... accounting for a large cost in airfare.

Many people have suggested that there should be a specific inspection conclusion on these surcharges, and the inspection agency should not be the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam.

At nearly VND500,000/ticket is the airline's surcharge called "system management". This amount has increased by 20-30% compared to three years ago.

This fee, according to Circular 53/2019 of the Ministry of Transport, is not included in the State's prescribed revenue. On the airline's website, it is explained that this surcharge is issued by the airline to maintain system operations.

But customers find it difficult to accept. Maintaining the airline's website must be included in the ticket price, it cannot be separated. Building a restaurant to serve customers, creating a website for customers to place orders... cannot be calculated as a "restaurant management surcharge" for each customer.

In addition to the ticket price, just counting the system fee and utility fee, the airline collected 504,000 - 534,000 VND/ticket.

The market needs transparency

It is natural for airlines to set up sales systems and information technology systems to serve their operations. On what basis do they collect additional fees such as system administration fees instead of including them directly in the ticket price? Or is this an ambiguous way to make customers see the tickets as cheaper than they actually are? Because the nature of these additional fees, like the ticket price, is the airline's revenue from ticket sales.

In the context of continuously increasing input factors, businesses can increase airfares according to market mechanisms. However, the aviation industry needs to separate and publicly disclose the increase in costs other than ticket prices.

The CEO of an airline admitted that to solve the problem of competition, it is necessary to increase the number of aircraft and domestic airlines. The restructured airline will of course seek investors, but there are many obstacles that make it difficult to revive the airline. There are few domestic airlines, little competition, and it is inevitable that they will raise prices, affecting passengers and many other industries.

Obviously, the current aviation market is facing a "bottleneck" of lack of competition and lack of aircraft. Most domestic flights are operated by Vietnam Airlines and Vietjet. Before the pandemic, there was a time when the market was bustling with the appearance of Bamboo Airways, creating a "tripod" of three competing airlines, passengers enjoying suitable ticket prices and relatively equivalent services. Then came Vietravel Airlines.

However, up to now, the domestic aviation market is witnessing many airlines facing difficulties, Bamboo Airways has gone from 30 planes to only 6-8 planes, Pacific Airlines has no more planes in operation, and Vietravel Airlines is also facing difficulties.

If you look at Thailand, they have dozens of airlines and are competing for cheap tickets and cheap travel even during peak season. Many airlines, airlines and tourism in Thailand have closely cooperated, keeping airfares and tours low to attract tourists. When there is high competition, the beneficiaries are certainly customers.

Vietnam National Administration of Tourism:

Airlines need to increase seats and reduce ticket prices

The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism has just responded to the Global Tourism Development Capacity Index Report 2024 according to the new assessment method published by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

According to the department, there have been some adjustments in the report's assessment method, leading to changes in Vietnam's indicators. In particular, the new index "Socio-economic impact of tourism" of Vietnam ranked only 115/119 economies, which is quite surprising.

The Department assessed that the results of this index do not reflect accurately, possibly because the World Economic Forum does not have sufficient updated data on Vietnam tourism.

Similarly, Vietnam's "Tourism Openness" index ranks 80th, in the low-middle group of the world. This index has 4 component indicators, of which "Visa Requirements" is assessed based on the World Tourism Organization's report on visa openness in 2015, which is outdated and does not reflect the great improvement in Vietnam's visa policy recently.

However, the department still proposed some solutions for improvement. With some indexes falling significantly, such as the "Aviation Infrastructure" index (down 17 places), the department recommended that the aviation industry continue to improve passenger transport service capacity, improve service quality, increase the number of seats provided, expand domestic and international flight network connections, and reduce airfares...

To improve the "Sustainability of tourism demand" index (down 24 places), the tourism industry needs to develop more tours and attractive tourism products so that international tourists can increase their length of stay in Vietnam...

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/gia-ve-may-bay-hang-bay-choi-chieu-voi-cac-khoan-phu-thu-la-20240526231553514.htm