People planning to travel during the holiday season may want to wait until next week to book their flights because the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) has announced that the aviation fuel surcharge for international flights is to be lowered on Sunday amid the continued decline of oil prices.
CAA air transport division director Han Chen-hua (韓振華) said that the aviation fuel charge is to be dropped from US$20 to US$15 per flight segment for short-distance flights, while that for long-distance flights is to be lowered from US$52 per segment to US$39 per segment.
Han said that a similar airfare adjustment could soon be enforced on domestic flights as well because fuel prices are about to slide to the threshold allowing the government to readjust domestic flight prices.
Han said the government can activate the mechanism to lower domestic flight ticket prices when the average fuel price over three consecutive months hits NT$21.74 per liter. The average fuel price in the past three months has dropped to NT$21.86 per liter.
He said the mechanism to lower the ticket price of domestic flights could be activated next month if oil prices continue to fall, adding that there would be cheaper tickets in March after domestic flight carriers calculate the percentage of decrease for different air routes due to the variance in operational costs.
Meanwhile, Han said domestic carriers had agreed to extend the implementation of “early-bird” discounts for travelers on off-peak flights until the end of next month, rather than the end of this month. Han said the airlines agreed to increase the number of seats that can be purchased at discount prices as well. Thirty percent of tickets are available for sale at a discount of 30 percent or lower, while 15 percent can be bought at a discount of between 35 and 50 percent.
Different domestic airlines also plan to offer various discounts for off-peak travelers between Feb. 13 and Feb. 24.
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