Widerøe customers pay plane passenger fee even though it is not introduced

Widerøe takes air passenger tax even if it is not introducedOslo. Widerøe. Photo: Gorm Kallestad / NTB scanpix

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