Air Canada raises fares then reverts back to lower prices

Air Canada appears to have tried to raise its airfares this past weekend, but ultimately decided to drop these increases after receiving numerous complaints from irate passengers, according to a report in the Globe and Mail. Canada’s flag carrier charged $30 each way as a fuel surcharge on short-haul domestic flights, $40 for medium-haul trips and $55 each way for long-haul flights between Canadian destinations. Yet the new prices were only in effect for about 48 hours, as the airline decided to start charging the older, lower prices again late this afternoon.

When asked about what appears to some as having been a flip flop on the part of the airline, the carrier’s spokesperson, Peter Fitzpatrick, simply said that this is just an example of “dynamic pricing,” which means that the company constantly changes airfares based on the price of fuel, the strength of competition on given routes, as well as the overall business environment. The last time that AC introduced a surcharge for domestic flights was on May 9^th. Prior to that point, only passengers travelling abroad had to pay an extra fee to compensate for the price of fuel. Consumer organizations, however, are calling on the airline to start advertising all-inclusive fares in newspapers and on its website, rather than ones that include only the basic ticket price, but nothing else, as this is highly misleading. For example, AC recently advertised flights from Toronto to Ottawa for only $49 each way, but when all taxes and additional fees are calculated in, the actual price increased to over $216 in the case of roundtrip travel.

www.aircanada.com