Flying to Europe This Summer? Not with these Tickets Prices, Fees and Taxes

by Chris Christensen ↓ Add comments
categories: editorial, europe travel tags: air travel

England is holding a party this year for the Queen’s Jubilee as well as the Olympics. They might want you to come but they are not being particularly inviting right now. If you go to book a ticket to London from New York City, for example, you might be surprised to find that your $291 airplane ticket will cost you $949 after you include the $658 in various fees and taxes. That’s right, the taxes are twice the cost of the actual ticket.

I asked my friends at TripAdvisor Flights for a list of the top travel destinations where people fly from New York City to see how fares, taxes and fees compare. Of the top 100 destinations that people fly to from New York City, 18 of these are European airports or city codes. I did a search on TripAdvisor’s Flights for the lowest fares from New York to each of these airports leaving on July 1st and returning on July 8th. TripAdvisor Flights is a meta search engine, which means that it searched various online travel agent sites and brought me back the total fare as well as how that breaks down between base price and taxes and fees. From that data I produced the following table:

Airport	City	Country	Total	Ticket	Taxes
AMS	Amsterdam	Netherlands	$1279	$1126	$153
ATH	Athens	Ireland	$1354	$1194	$160
BCN	Barcelona	Spain	$1095	$518	$577
BEG	Belgrade	Serbia	$1328	$1212	$116
BER	Berlin	Germany	$670	$147	$523
DUB	Dublin	Athens	$882	$735	$147
FRA	Frankfort	Germany	$1069	$550	$519
IST	Istanbul	Turkey	$1199	$875	$324
KBP	Kiev	Ukraine	$989	$889	$100
LON	London	UK	$949	$291	$658
MAD	Madrid	Spain	$1069	$517	$552
MOW	Moscow	Russia	$933	$822	$111
MUC	Munich	Germany	$1339	$1123	$216
PAR	Paris	France	$1125	$978	$147
ROM	Rome	Italy	$1260	$1127	$133
VCE	Venice	Italy	$1385	$1250	$135
WAW	Warsaw	Poland	$1235	$710	$525

The average total for taxes and fees was $300. The highest was London at $658. Berlin, Dublin and Moscow are a better deal than London even though taxes to Berlin were over $500.

High fuel prices and decreased competition were probably already going to make this year a tough year for travel. But Europe is not exactly putting out the welcome mat this year. We changed plans for our trip to Europe and are heading to Costa Rica instead. As for the Queen’s Jubilee, we will just send a card.

by Chris Christensen

I am the host of the Amateur Traveler. The Amateur Traveler is an online travel show that focuses primarily on travel destinations and what are the best places to travel to. It includes both a weekly audio podcast, a video podcast, and a blog.

+Chris Christensen | @chris2x | facebook

6 Responses to “Flying to Europe This Summer? Not with these Tickets Prices, Fees and Taxes”

Jeremy Branham

Says:
May 6th, 2012 at 7:54 pm

Tickets are really expensive this year. Not only are the Olympics a factor but travel demand is up this year. Earlier this year, forecasters predicted this travel season to be a big one so not surprised to see higher airfares. Plus airlines have had three airfare hikes this year.

I am a bit of a nerd when it comes to researching airfare stuff. I always want to find the best deal. However, there aren’t going to be as many this year so my advice is to book early. The closer we get to summer, the higher these airfares are going to be.

Pete

Says:
May 7th, 2012 at 10:03 pm

Interesting stuff. I would have never expected Moscow to be as low as it is….

chris2x

Says:
May 8th, 2012 at 12:17 am

yes, Moscow was a bit of a surprise to me as well.

Anila

Says:
June 6th, 2012 at 9:56 am

Yep I have an American friend whose visa expired and so she had to return to the states, and when she bought her ticket she thought she might as well buy a return so she actually has a ticket that could allow her to come back during the Olympics.

However, even flying out of the UK is pretty expensive this year more than most it seems, so looks like she and a lot of others will be sticking closer to home this year!!