More airlines change their fuel surcharge basis (from actual weight to chargeable weight)

Good afternoon All

This change of tack on the basis for calculation of fuel surcharges (FSC) has been gathering pace and now we have 5 major carriers who have moved from Actual Weight to Chargeable Weight. So far no American carriers.

Lufthansa
Air France/KLM
Singapore Airlines
Japan Airlines
Emirates

Generally speaking, most airlines have always used the cargo's dead (actual) weight to assess fuel surcharge, primarily because the fuel cost is linked to the weight of the payload on the aircraft and so actual weight has seemed the fairest way to pass on the costs of the rising price of jet fuel.

The irony here is that FSC has been in place since 2001-2002 and although it began as a lowly USD 0.10-USD 0.20 per kilo, for the past five years, it has hovered between USD 0.80 and USD 1.30 per kilo. So why, do you ask, don't they just build it into the core air freight rates? Why not indeed..
http://theloadstar.co.uk/shipper-anger-grows-as-more-airlines-weigh-in-with-costly-surcharge-change/

It will be interesting to see how this affects the market - it will certainly hit customers who ship volume cargo (greater than 6000cc per kilo).

Kind Regards


Andy Cliff