Beware of These Additional Airport Taxes and Fees
In the world of travel blogging, there are a few tricks to swear on if you want the cheapest flights. Take advantage of, for example, one-way tickets and avoid expensive airports like Heathrow in London.
Why avoid flights from London? Due to additional taxes and fees levied at some airports, in particular the Air Passenger Duty (APD) levied on passengers departing from the UK, which is the highest passenger tax in the world. Condé Nast Traveler explains:
Effective 1 April 2018, the per person tax on long haul flights has increased from £ 75 ($ 105) to £ 78 ($ 110) for Economy Class and from £ 150 ($ 211) to £ 156 ( $ 220) for premium classes. … Short-haul flights are not excluded either; passengers on fast flights receive an APD of £ 13 ($ 18) added to the total ticket price, a rate unchanged April 1. Even award tickets paid for with carefully accumulated frequent flyer miles require an APD payment.
Take a close look at the breakdown of your ticket receipt and you will see similar taxes levied in Frankfurt, Paris, Nice and other cities:
Travelers departing from nine of France’s busiest airports, including Paris Charles de Gaulle and Nice , pay € 35 (US $ 42) Taxe sur les Nuisances Sonores Aériennes (TNSA) to compensate for aircraft noise. Australia has a Passenger Transfer Charge (PMC) of A $ 60 (US $ 46), while Germany imposes an annoying Luftverkehrsabgabe air tax of € 40 (US $ 49) per person on long haul flights.
You can see a breakdown of these taxes around the world here .
This means that if you can turn it around, a cheaper way to travel in Europe, for example, is to “fly to one European country, then take a short train ride to a neighboring country [no passenger tax], spend a few days in a new place, and then we fly away at a much lower price, “- as I wrote earlier , taking advantage of the reduction in prices for one-way tickets. To find the cheapest destinations, use Google Flights, which allows you to add nearby airports to your search criteria.