I think you will find that's the case on all routes. The newspapers today have reported that BA, bmi and Virgin have jsut reduced fuel surcharges.

Does that mean they will pass the savings on to people who have already booked

Hope they do, have payed in full for 4 flights to Orlando in May,Carnival have given a refund
for the Cruise[fuel] hope Virgin do the same
ann

Hi Ann

Which Carnival boat are you going on? We were just on the Triumph last month.

Hi Lesley74 we are on The Glory in May,last August The Liberty fantastic ship,hope the Glory
is as good,thought Carnival were excellent.
Ann

Update on the virgin price cut.

This only applies to passengers who havent booked their holidays yet.
Anyone who has paid, or paid a deposit will not be entitled to a fuel cut.

That includes me, so not impressed

Me to,paid in full
ann

E-mailed virgin to see if I was getting a refund on our 2 vegas flights next sept and even though we have paid in full and have not flown yet we are not getting anything.
JUST ANOTHER RIP OFF!!!!

Why would you get any money back? That doesn't make sense to me. If you were happy enough with the price you paid at the time (if you weren't, why book?) and you are still getting the same service that you paid for, the fact that some other people will be getting that service for cheaper now is irrelevent. You wouldn't go into a supermarket and demand that they give you the difference back because a can of beans went down in price compared to when you bought your can a few weeks ago, would you?

Maybe I am missing something... if so, please enlighten me.

My guess would be that when these passengers bought their tickets from Virgin they agreed on the price,plus the fuel surcharge that was imposed in advance to cover the high cost of jet fuel.
Now the price of that fuel has gone down, Virgin and others are reducing prices to reflect that.
The passengers who have already paid the surcharge but have yet to fly are irritated because they are paying extra for something that is no longer valid, and they have yet to use the basic service for which they paid.
If they had already traveled and were looking for a refund your analogy might make sense but they have not....

True, but most airlines hedge their bets when it comes to fuel costs. The price of fuel now doesn't necessarily have any bearing on what an airline has paid for the fuel being used in their planes today, this week, or in a month's time. Can you imagine the administrative nightmare if airlines had to keep refunding passengers every time fuel prices dropped a bit? They would also have to work out what was paid for THAT particular fuel that is going to be used on each passenger's flight. The fuel may have been purchased months ago, or even a year ago.

However, I can see that it's frustrating in one way because airlines are often quick to add a fuel surcharge even after passengers have booked their flights. It's funny how, in business, it doesn't usually work the other way around.

My analogy still makes sense. Whether or not the people have travelled doesn't matter. What matters is that money has changed hands and a contract entered into. To go back to the same analogy, what if I bought those beans from a supermarket and, 15 minutes later as I'm driving home, I hear on the radio that this supermarket has just cut the price of beans? I haven't used the service yet (i.e. eaten the beans) but I have still paid for them and I agreed with the price at the time.

The airlines didn't find it to be "an administrative nightmare" to calculate and impose the fuel surcharge when their fuel costs rose, so it shouldn't be too difficult to refund those costs. ALL of the cruiselines have done this.
With computer programming and regard for their customers it can be achieved

As I said earlier, just because fuel prices are lower right NOW doesn't mean anything. That fuel could have been bought months ago when fuel was double or triple the price that it is now.

That's nice that cruiselines are refunding passengers. That's good customer service but the airlines aren't obliged to follow suit. McDonald's has coffee for less than half the price that Starbucks does. Can I go into Starbucks and demand that they give me coffee for the same price? I actually don't like coffee but apparently the new McDonald's stuff is pretty decent. Even so, good luck with trying to convince Starbucks that just because another company has the same tasting coffee for half the price, Starbucks should also lower their prices to make it fair. Life doesn't work like that, unfortunately.

Basically grayejectbutton is right, that is exactly what Virgin and my travel agent told me.

Also another factor is the brochures themselves - I booked in the first edition our trip to the Usa, the second edition is a lot higher including the upgrades of seats we paid for. So we may have lost out on the fuel, but made up on the upgrade of seats and the actually price of the holiday. It is all swings and roundabouts

Perhaps also worth pointing out that Virgin did not demand extra fuel surcharges from passengers who already had booked a flight when the cost of fuel was going up. When fuel surcharges were increasing, the higher cost was only past to new bookings.

I agree with greyeject - you pay those prices at the time because you obviously think they are fair. It's a bummer when prices drop but if you look at it the other way - you pay £500 for a flight to Vegas and the price of oil doubles in 6 months, you're not going to be charged an extra £150 for your flight are you? Where as people booking 6 months later will pay the higher prices.
A lot of the people on this forum are well travelled and know how it works with booking holidays - if you book very early, you can get a bargain, or you can miss out on really good deals. You pays your money and takes your choice.

Incidentally, in October I looked at Premium economy flights to Vegas next September and Virgin had them for £890 return. I didn't have the money at the time so couldn't book them.....now they are just under £1400 and don't look likely to change....I'm gutted!
TC

Yeah, I booked a flight for my girlfriend recently that was $750. We thought that was a great deal because it was $900 the week before. A few days later it went down to under $600! That's just the way it goes sometimes!

Most brochures also say that they will absorb costs if they go up by say 2% and if they go down by 2% you get nothing back.

I dont really see what people have to complain about as you know what you are getting into when you book.

Its just the luck of the draw, I would hardly call it a rip-off as someone described it.
People just seem to want the terms and conditions to change to suit themselves.