BA hits families with 900 fuel surcharge on a family trip to Florida

Long-haul flights booked from next Tuesday will cost an extra £60 return  -  a 38 per cent increase on the last increase just a month ago.

This means £218 will be added to the ticket price for a trip lasting more than nine hours.

A family of four heading for Florida or many other long-distance resorts face paying nearly £900 in fuel surcharges. Analysts fear the soaring price of crude oil could send the bill over £1,000 in weeks.

The surcharge on short-haul flights will also increase on Tuesday by £3 each way to £16. For long-haul flights of less than nine hours the charge will rise by £15 each way to £78.

The rises, announced yesterday, are the 14th in four years and could be copied by many full-service carriers. Most major airlines are increasing their surcharges including Virgin Atlantic, KLM and Air France.

From today Virgin is charging business passengers £45 extra and economy £5 more for a flight to New York.

BA claims its prices are 'middling' internationally but one industry expert said last night: 'BA has now probably the most expensive fuel surcharge. Usually it's someone like Cathay Pacific, but most others-have not yet matched BA. This is a huge and aggressive increase which will hurt economy passengers in particular.'

BA's fuel bill topped £2.1billion last year and is set to hit £3 billion this year  -  accounting for than a quarter of the carrier's total costs. It uses six million tonnes of jet fuel a year and every $1 rise in oil prices costs it £16million.

Last week the airline's boss Willie Walsh declared the golden age of cheap air travel over as airlines fight for their very 'survival' in the face of rocketing fuel prices.

Passengers face a future of higher fares, more paid for 'extras' and fuel surcharges, costly 'green' stealth taxes and fewer airlines as many carriers go bust or merge.

For millions of Britons it spells the end of the era of cheap weekend city breaks to places like Barcelona, Prague, Madrid or Baltic states like Estonia.

Mr Walsh also predicted it would spell the death-knell for no-frills airlines epitomised by Ryanair and easyJet which have boomed with deals as low as '£1 plus taxes'.

BA unveiled record annual profits of £883million for last year, but analysts warned that fuel costs could wipe out profits this year. It has not ruled out grounding planes or cutting routes, as others are already doing to save costs.

The airline already itemises the fuel surcharge separately from the ticket price to show passengers the extent of the problem.

Diesel bought in Britain is the most expensive in Europe  -  despite it being the cheapest before tax is added, figures show.

The average price last month was 116.6p per litre. That is 30p more than the lowest EU price, in Cyprus.

But before tax, diesel is the cheapest among leading European countries, at just 48.8p.

Fuel duty and VAT make up 58 per cent of the price compared to the rest of the EU where the tax take is between 37 and 52 per cent.

The figures, published on the Department for Business website, also show that unleaded petrol is the second cheapest in Europe  -  at 41.2p  -  before tax is added.

The Conservatives' Treasury spokesman Philip Hammond said: 'Gordon Brown's claim that world oil prices are to blame for the soaring cost of motoring has been exposed as a sham.

'The blame lies squarely with him, and because his government has run out of money, instead of helping hard-pressed motorists he is hitting them yet again with a massive hike in road tax. When will he get the message that people have had enough?'

Rising oil prices have helped push up petrol prices, but the impact has been made worse by VAT, which is charged on both the cost of the petrol and the cost of the fuel duty, at 50.3p per litre. As oil prices increase, the Government rakes in more through VAT.