Shocked travellers pay out Dh25 more as service charge

Travellers leaving Dubai International Airport were surprised yesterday when they had to pay nearly double the Dh30 airport tax.

Instead of paying the Dh30 tax, which was the amount announced, they had to pay an additional Dh25 as a service charge imposed on travellers who had not already paid the Dh30 tax when they booked their tickets with their travel agent.

Outbound passengers were at the ticket counters yesterday demanding to know why they were paying the extra Dh25, which had never been mentioned in the first place.

Travel agents have been blamed for the additional charge because many of them have not understood that they can save their clients money by including the charge when they issue an invoice.

Some travel agents have tried to explain away the extra cost and have said the tickets must have been bought a long time ago to incur the extra fee. Saji, an Indian scheduled to fly yesterday, said his employer only bought his ticket last month.

R. Sabha, who was travelling to Tehran, was also surprised when he was asked to pay Dh25 more after handing over three Dh10 notes. Ebrahim, who was travelling to Bahrain yesterday, said he did not mind paying a travel tax, but objected to the long line-ups. An airport ticketing agent, who asked not to be identified, said the additional Dh25 fee is a "service charge."

"It's better for passengers to insist on paying the Dh30 passenger service charge during ticketing itself. That way, they save both money and time."

Haroon Abdullah, general manager of Gulf and World Tours and Travels, explained: "The UAE was the only country in the region that was not collecting any such charges from passengers. Recently the UAE Federal Civil Aviation Authority has introduced Dh30 as service fee for all tickets having a departure from UAE on September 1, 2004."

Normally this kind of fees can be either collected on departure or collected at the time of ticketing.

He added that since UAE authorities asked all airlines in the world to collect the fee at the time of ticketing, all the reservation and ticketing system has been updated.

Abdullah further explained that the airlines and travel agents were asked to charge the tax on tickets issued from August 1 for departures starting September 1. Moreover, he said IATA's Billing Settlement Plan has the facility to do the collection on behalf of all participating airlines.

Travel agents across the world are also collecting departure charges for different countries. "The taxes are collected under various country codes and transferred to the particular account of that country," he said.

Five commercial airports in the UAE – Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Fujairah, Sharjah and Al Ain - charge a departure tax. The only exception is Ras Al Khaimah Airport. Yesterday many passengers were still unaware of the levy.

"We didn't know they were starting the airport tax today," said James B., a Briton, who was flying back to London with his family.

S. Khan, travelling to Karachi yesterday, said: "Dubai International Airport is up to international standards, so a Dh30 charge is fine. But the Dh25 service charge is not."