Thousands of Widerøe customers pay 88 kroner in aeroplane passenger fees despite the fact that the fee has not yet been introduced. The money ends up with the airline company, the newspaper Avisa Nordland reports.
In winter Widerøe increased the basic price of all its commercial flights by 88 kroner per trip. The extra costs were meant to cover the fee that would be introduced on 1 April this year. The introduction of the tax has been postponed temporarily.
– Prices were increased in the New Year to take into account a combination of extraordinary price adjustment and increase of some fees and the introduction of the plane passenger duty from 1 April., Communication Manager of Widerøe Silje Brandvoll told the newspaper.
She confirms that this only applies to the company’s commercial routes, which account for 60 percent of all routes.
– If the travelers have traveled on PSO routes where the state pays part of the cost, he will not have paid tax on these journeys, says Brandvoll, who believes the company has no way to repay the 88 crowns per ticket to the passengers concerned.
– That would have been more costly to us than the extra profits we have received because of the price increases, Brandvoll says.
Both SAS and Norwegian state that they have not increased their prices to account for the plane passenger tax.
Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today