Yes, you are entitled to the tax back but some no-frills airlines charge you an administration fee for doing so which can wipe out any benefit of reclaiming it. Most charge you the same as they as they would to transfer the ticket to another date or change the name etc and £30 per head is a the top end but still within the range of what airlines charge for doing this You will need to check on what FlyBe's policy is on this.

SM

Ryanair will not refund of any part of the fare. Whether this is legal or not has yet to be tested in Court and until it is Ryanair will continue with this policy. Flybe could well do the same.

The actual tax to the governement is the Air passenger Duty which is GBP10.00 each on this flight. The other parts of the taxes are airport fees. The tickets you bought are fully non refundable.

When you booked the tickets did the booking conditions state Fully Non refundable ? I am sure they did so I cant understand why you are expecting a refund. The cost of operating a refund service on tax elements would mean these airlines could not offer a low cost service.

If you were ill then your travel insurance will pay out a refund. I assume you had travel insurance.

Kind Regards
Stewart

I thought I'd heard something about this so have done a search and come up with the following:-

http://money.guardian.co.uk/travel/story/0,1456,1582312,00.html

Well found Glynis.

I'm having difficulty in accepting the need for the airline to charge an admin. fee for the return of taxes. The taxes don't belong to the airline they are simply collecting the money on behalf of the government. When a non-refundable ticket is cancelled they quite rightly keep the ticket fare already paid and of course may in addition get to sell the seat again. So, haven't they been rewarded enough?

The airlines processing costs associated with the cancellation would require little extra effort to also produce a cheque for the tax amount. I'd expect a more realistic cost to be approx. £5.00

Stewart's right about claiming on the insurance if cancellation results from illness. However, why should the insurance company pay additional sums for what amounts to a profit-tax for the airline? This simply results in a higher insurance premium.

Mike

If the low cost airlines would have to refund the taxes then people will book hundreds of Free, 99p, 1.99 and other low price tickets and then just cancel if they dont need them. The cost for the admin would push the fares up and everyone would complain about that.

Kind Regards
Stewart

How's this for a radical approach Stewart;

The low-cost airline offers flights are low but realistic charges.
The passenger books - probably by credit/debit card - but pays ONLY for the flight.
The passenger arrives at the check-in desk and is required to pay the tax before being allowed on to the flight.

The airline has no cancellation/refund fees relating to the unpaid tax should the pax cancel.

Of course, the airline also fails to benefit from the tax take at time of booking. At £10 per passeger I wonder how much money sits in the airline's account at any given time as I'm sure they airline will only pay the government monthly based upon audited flying numbers in the previous month. Beats having an overdraft Stewart.

Mike

And you would expect the airline to sell tickets for 2.99 even 10.00 and if people dont turn up for the flight ( loads wont because the price was so cheap so book in case you need it )then flight goes empty the airline goes bust.

Nice long check-ins collecting all that extra money.

Of course the airline benefits from people booking early and collecting money at the time of booking. Thats one of the mainstays of the low cost model if they didnt there would be no low cost airlines and little competition and back to the fares of old, is this what people would prefer ? Or do you think airlines make money out of £1.99 fares ?

Kind Regards
Stewart