LEGACY carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) seeks to impose a few hundred pesos of fuel surcharge on its domestic flights to help recoup its losses from the rising cost of jet fuel in the global market.
Based on a filing with the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), the flag carrier plans to levy the following charges on its domestic ticket prices: P282 for flights originating from Luzon going to another point in Luzon or the Visayas; P405 for Luzon to Mindanao; P158 for Visayas to Visayas; and P22 for Mindanao to Visayas or Mindanao. The case shall be heard on June 25.
A fuel surcharge is a temporary relief granted to airlines to help them recover losses incurred from higher jet-fuel prices.
The regulator removed this component from ticket prices starting 2015, as prices of jet fuel plummeted by as much as $40 per barrel in mid-2014, after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) decided to maintain current production levels despite a glut in the market.
When the regulator decided to scrap the fuel-surcharge fee on ticket prices in 2015, the average price of jet fuel was at $75 per barrel.
Data from the International Air Transport Association showed jet-fuel cost was at $86.9 per barrel as of June 15, down by 6.5 percent from the preceding month, but 54 percent more than the year-ago price.
Fuel prices have gone from record lows in 2014 to four-year highs this year, as supplies from the Opec is deepening the supply cut, and the recorded drops in crude production in Venezuela, among other factors.