BBC claims airlines burning extra fuel to cut air traffic fees
03.12.07
Airlines are deliberately flying longer routes over the Atlantic to avoid paying air traffic control charges, the BBC has reported after carrying out its own investigation. The news service reports that Thomas Cook and Monarch frequently burn extra aircraft fuel to avoid higher fees on flights to the Canary Islands.
The BBC was tipped off about the 'tango routes' by a Thomas Cook pilot. He told them: 'There are parts of Europe which are cheaper to fly over than other parts. So you can lengthen a flight by maybe fifteen minutes or more to avoid expensive bits of airspace.'
During a month-long investigation the BBC monitored 44 Thomas Cook flights from Birmingham, Manchester and Newcastle Airport flying to the Canary Islands and back. It says that a high proportion of the flights used tango routes.
The direct route, flying over French, Spanish and Portuguese airspace, incurs £1,578 in air traffic control charges. Tango route costs come to £968 which, allowing for the extra fuel costs, means the airlines would make an annual saving of £99 per flight.
But the cost saving 100-mile (160km) diversion, known as the tango route, can produce an extra 3 tonnes of carbon dioxide per flight - equal to the amount of CO2 emitted by 150 car journeys between London and Brighton.
A spokesman for Thomas Cook Airlines told the BBC: 'We can confirm that we do operate routes to the Canary Islands, which include using tango routes. These routes are used when they are the most efficient and when it is necessary to avoid lengthy air traffic control delays caused by airspace congestion in European airspace.'
'On the Thomas Cook Airlines flights that used tango routes between the 2nd and 16th November 2007, fuel was saved on more than 75 percent of these flights.'
Luton-based airline Monarch admitted using the tango routes to avoid paying over flight charges but it also said it used them to maintain flight schedules. The tango routes are less likely to suffer slot restrictions, meaning airlines may benefit from more punctual schedules.
A spokesman for the airline told the BBC: 'By travelling via these Oceanic routes, the company avoids paying French and/or Spanish over flight charges and instead pays a much smaller Oceanic airspace over flight charge to the UK and Ireland. However, this over flight cost saving has to be balanced against the additional mileage which increases both the flight time and fuel-related costs.'
'In a highly competitive marketplace, where customers demand increasingly low fares, we have to manage our costs as tightly as possible. Ultimately the environmental impact comes down to whether the travelling public is prepared to pay.'
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