MANX2 has scrapped all ‘hidden’ booking fees and payment card surcharges – in a move which many passengers hope will be followed by other air operators serving the island.
From yesterday (Thursday) it announced it is abolishing all charges on credit and debit cards and all booking and transaction fees, meaning that customers can book knowing they’ll be paying no more than the advertised price for the flight.
Chairman Noel Hayes said that additional fees being levied across the aviation industry were creating ‘bad feeling’ among the travelling public – and he did not believe the move towards incremental increases in booking fees were justifiable.
He said: ‘What’s happened in the aviation industry over the past two years is that the level of charges has been pushed up above what I would regard as acceptable.
‘We’ve got to the stage where we’re not going to follow the industry trend. It’s not something we want to be part of.
‘Passengers don’t know what they are going to pay until they get to the end of the booking process. It generates bad feeling. We don’t get a lot of complaints but proportionally we get more complaints about additional fees.
‘So in the interests of charging transparency we have done away with all these additional charges and what you see is what you’ll pay.’
Manx2.com’s prices also include all taxes, a guarantee of no fuel surcharges, a free 10kg carry-on bag allowance, free online check-in, free transfer to an earlier flight on the day of travel as well as free parking at Blackpool and Gloucestershire Airports.
The only extras will be £9.99 for hold luggage and £3 if you want to pay for priority boarding.
Mr Hayes said there were no plans to increase fares to cover the cost of losing the extra fees and surcharges – and the company would absorb the cost (about 2 to 3 per cent of the ticket price) of processing credit card transactions.
He said it was hoped that scrapping these extra charges would generate additional passengers volume that would offset the lost income.
Manx2 has always charged a fee for booking by credit card but it introduced a booking fee 18 months ago of £4.50 per single journey.
Additional fees per booking were capped at £20.
Last year, a super-complaint from Which? to the UK Office of Fair Trading resulted in Westminster government announcing measures to try to outlaw credit card surcharges. However, many companies have responded by simply transferring card charges onto higher booking fees instead.
David Buck, managing director of Manx2.com, said: ‘Many companies impose charges you can only avoid by using an obscure payment card and we hope that passengers will show their support for our honest pricing and vote with their wallets.’
Infrastructure Minister David Cretney MHK congratulated Manx2 on the move, saying: ‘I sincerely hope others follow your lead.’