Emirates Airline will tomorrow add a fuel surcharge as high as Dh610 (US$166) per ticket to compensate for the rapidly rising price of oil.
The surcharge will add Dh60 to economy tickets on routes from the UAE to destinations in the Middle East and Indian subcontinent. The surcharge for first-class and business-class tickets on the same routes will be Dh390.
On routes from the UAE to Africa, Europe, the Far East and Australasia, economy tickets rise by Dh120, and first class and business class by Dh500.
From the UAE to the Americas, the economy surcharge will be Dh170 and Dh610 for first and business classes.
The increases follow a rapid rise in the price of Brent crude, the European oil benchmark, which hit a 10-month high of US$125 a barrel this week as fears grew of a confrontation with Iran over its nuclear programme. Oil prices have so far risen 11.3 per cent since the start of the month.
Emirates said yesterday's decision "reflects the substantial recent increases in our fuel costs. Emirates has already incurred substantial costs by absorbing the recent price rises, but the surcharge gives us the ability to respond faster to market conditions, rather than a lengthier process of incorporating them into fares."
The company declined to speculate on how long the surcharge would remain in place.
"The changes will give us the ability to decrease prices quickly, where appropriate. We will review the level of the surcharge on an ongoing basis," a spokeswoman said. "All surcharges are one-way, and tickets issued prior to March 1, 2012 are exempt."
The airline last imposed a fuel surcharge in April but lifted it after just three weeks.
That surcharge was also imposed because of rising oil prices, but it was removed after crude oil prices fell 15 per cent - at the time the steepest decline in two and a half years - leaving a barrel of Brent crude trading at about $109, down from a high of more than $127.
"We promised our customers from the outset that we would eliminate the surcharge as soon as it was commercially viable, and this has now been done," Tim Clark, the Emirates president, said last year after the decision to remove the surcharge. "We continue to closely monitor the situation."
Last night the oil price fell slightly to $123.30
Emirates's decision comes two weeks after Etihad Airways announced it was imposing a fuel surcharge on its European flights, but in this case to offset the costs imposed on the airline by the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
Etihad imposed an additional charge of $3 per passenger for flights into and out of Europe and 3 US cents per kilogram for cargo shipments, also to take effect for travel from tomorrow.
Under the EU's ETS, carbon dioxide emissions for flights operating to and from EU airports were made subject to levies, effective from January 1 this year. Its aim is to mitigate the impact of aviation on climate change.
twitter: Follow our breaking business news and retweet to your followers. Follow us
