At the beginning of April, the airlines in the Lufthansa Group are to introduce a new system for calculating ticket surcharges.

From April 2014, Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian Airlines and Brussels Airlines will introduce a standardised international/domestic surcharge levied on intercontinental connections on the basis of the entire flight route, replacing the current system based on individual flight segments.

The geographic zones used for calculating surcharges will also be simplified and reduced from nine to six. The sliding scale based on travel class will continue to be used.

Depending on the destination region, the international/domestic surcharge on intercontinental journeys from Europe will be between €80 and €200 in each direction in Economy Class, and between €100 and €250 in each direction in Business and First Class.

For journeys from the UK market, the amount of the surcharge will be aligned with the competition.

Ticket surcharges for flights with Lufthansa Group airlines within Europe will also be harmonised at the same time, and the differentiation of surcharges according to travel class, which already exists for intercontinental flights, will also be applied.

While the future surcharge in Business Class will be €50 per segment, it will remain at €43 in Economy Class.

The new system applies to all tickets issued from April 1st 2014 onwards for all Lufthansa Group flights.

The Lufthansa Group began to revise its surcharge system last year and linked its fuel surcharge to the travel class booked, as was already the case at its competitors.

It then replaced its surcharges with a standardised, Group-wide international/domestic surcharge at the start of 2014.