Travel in China

With most airlines across the world taking strict measures to cope up with the rising fuel costs, in a significant announcement made on Tuesday, China Southern Airlines confirmed that it shall raise its fuel surcharge on international flights. The rise is expected to be more than 30 percent.

In the announcement, China Southern said that the rise would be as follows. The fuel surcharge for round-trip tickets on long-haul international flights has been raised to CNY2,200 yuan (USD$320.70) from CNY1,600 yuan. Notably, this is an increase of 37.5 percent.

On the other hand, in case of short-distance international flights, including those flying to Southeast Asia, the charge for round-trip flights[China Trip tickets] will be increased to CNY1,100 from CNY840. This is an increase up by 31 percent.

The airline has said that the surcharge increase will come into effect from 10th July.

Earlier during this month, the regulators increased the ex-refinery jet fuel prices of the country by CNY1,500 per tonne. Following this, major Chinese Airlines including Air China and China Eastern Airlines announced an increase in their fuel surcharges with respect to domestic flights working up to 50 percent.

Though this move was hoped to help the airlines cope up with the shooting up of oil prices, the price increase rather proved to be a double blow for the airlines, which faced a serious drop in the volume of passengers during the recent months. This was further triggered by the devastating earthquake that happened in the month of May that nearly shook the whole of China.