The Civil Aviation Administration confirmed on Wednesday that the request by several airways to re-impose fuel surcharge on domestic flights has been officially turned down by competent departments. Ticket-pricing policy will remain stable, that is, international airlines can impose fuel surcharge while fuel surcharge on domestic flights has been cancelled. Ticket prices are not linked to oil price changes.

Since last year aviation oil prices have jumped three times. Pressured by rising costs major domestic airways such as Air China, China Eastern and China Southern submitted a request to the competent departments for re-imposing the fuel surcharge. Officials with the Civil Aviation Administration said although the request has been turned down the airways could offset the rising costs by adjusting their ticket prices.

According to China's regulations domestic flights can float their prices between 125 percent and 55 percent of the benchmark price. There have long been lots of discounted tickets in the market. If pressured by the rising costs they could reduce discounts and the quantity of discounted tickets within prescribed scope.

According to sources the cost of aviation oil has amounted to about one third of the total cost. Although the competition in the aviation market is relatively full aviation oil supply has remained monopolized. The airways' domestic flights rely mainly on the China Aviation Oil alone for fuel, and prices of domestic aviation oil are fixed and released by competent departments of the central government.

For lack of competition as well as factors such as production technics domestic aviation oil prices have always been higher than those of other countries. Some airways with international flights often fill their airplanes with as much fuel as possible in a foreign country before returning home in order to reduce the cost. The denial of their request to collect fuel surcharge could further add to the airways' dissatisfaction over existing aviation oil supply system and the desire to break monopoly.

Large discounts for tickets of major flights are rarely seen nowadays and most tickets have a discount of less than 40 percent.

By People's Daily Online