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British Airways Rapacious, Possibly Loquacious?

There's trouble, friends, right here in River City. Trouble with a capital T that rhymes with P that stands for, uh, Price Fixing! And by River City, you know we mean London. (Shush! There's a river there) Two British Airways officials are on a "leave of absence" after the Office of Fair Trading in the UK and the Justice Department in the U.S. announced that B.A. is being investigated for colluding with other airlines in a price fixing scandal.

In short: Notice how a lot of airlines have added hefty "fuel surcharges" on long-haul flights in the last two years? Well B.A. is accused of making them twice with what they should be by conspiring with other airlines on  JFK-Heathrow flights (the route is also served by Virgin, American, and United, all of whom levy the exact same surcharges). Keeping the fees high on transatlantic flights allowed B.A. to compete with low-cost carriers on shorter routes. In the meantime, B.A. has promised to cooperate, and possibly name names.

No wonder B.A. has been doing so well the past few years--they've been stealing passengers blind. We agree with Ryanair's spokesman, who called the fees "rapacious".  We've always called those fuel surcharges a scam--we just never knew how right we were.

[Image via birdlike/Flickr]

Related Stories:
·   BA Price Fixing Turmoil [Guardian]
·   BA Investigated [Times of London]