Ryanair and Aer Lingus boost profits by refusing to refund airport chargeslevied on customers who have missed their flights

Ryanair and Aer Lingus are padding their profits by refusing to refund airport charges levied on customers who miss their flights. The money is retained by the airlines and not paid on to the relevant airports.

Both airlines are adding millions of euro to their bottom line by netting money which is not part of the quoted cost of the actual fare.

The charges are the same for all customers regardless of the price of the ticket, disproportionately affecting those travelling on economy fares.

Irish passengers pay roughly €13.70 each in taxes and charges on flights out of Dublin and more from Cork and Shannon. Of this, €6.55 (€7.85 in Cork and Shannon) is accounted for by a passenger service charge and an airport security charge levied by Aer Rianta on each departing passenger.

A spokesman for Aer Rianta said it received this money only for passengers who actually take the flights and had no understanding with the airlines that money collected from passengers who did not eventually fly would be retained by those airlines.

In the 12 months to the end of March 2002, 889,000 of Ryanair's paying customers did not take their flights.

These include passengers using routes from Britain, where charges are higher and from Europe, where many are lower.

On the basis of the €6.55 Dublin charge, Ryanair would have added close to €6 million to its bottom line profits, which were €168.7 million in the six months to last September.

Equivalent figures for Aer Lingus are likely to be more significant given the lower level of profitability at the airline.

On top of the fare for their flight, passengers generally face a range of additional charges. These include:

an insurance levy of $3 per passenger per flight imposed following the September 11th attacks in the US;

airport charges, including security and passenger service charges imposed per departing passenger;

in certain cases, such as flights from Britain, additional state taxes.

Most of these costs are due only on those passengers who actually fly. However, Ryanair refuses to refund any of them to passengers who do not embark. It argues that its fares are non-refundable and the taxes are part of the fares.

This is in spite of Ryanair clearly indicating the taxes and other charges separately when billing customers and making an issue of the fact that customers pay more because of charges imposed by Aer Rianta and other airports authorities.

Aer Lingus refunds all additional costs to customers holding refundable fares but passengers holding non-refundable tickets forfeit any airport charges levied - €10.92 in the case of passengers flying out of Dublin and €13 for passengers using Cork and Shannon.

A spokesman for Aer Lingus said this was the normal practice in the industry and that many of the charges levied would be incurred by the airline regardless of whether the passenger flew.

But it has been condemned by the Consumers Association of Ireland. Chief executive Mr Dermott Jewell said: "It is unacceptable practice for airlines in not refunding these charges. Ryanair, Aer Lingus and any other airline operating in this way is going to have to make some attempt to identify passengers and refund this money."

A spokesman for the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, which governs consumer affairs, said the issue of refunds was not regulated centrally. "This is a matter of private contract law between the customer and the airlines," he said. "However, cases have been fought and won by passengers in Ireland."

A spokeswoman for Ryanair last night said that, while tickets were non-refundable, Ryanair had opened options for passengers who wanted to alter the name on their tickets or to change the date and time of their flight.