British Airways (BA) has been slammed today for "misleading" its customers over climbing fuel surcharges that from today will add £116 to the price of a return long-haul flight.

Research by Times Online can reveal that BA has increased the surcharge on long-haul flights 23-fold in less than fours year despite a less than threefold rise in the price of fuel.

In May 2004, when BA first introduced a fuel surcharge, customers paid an extra £2.50 on longhaul flights. From today passengers will pay an extra £58.00 on a one-way long-haul flight taking longer than nine hours.

Since 2004, the price of Brent crude has risen from $36.97 a barrel to $91.07.

A spokesman at the Air Transport Users Council (AUC), said that stripping out the cost of fuel was "misleading", because it is a cost of business and should be included in the price of the ticket.

He said: "Companies try and make out that the actual price of the ticket is cheap for example, a ticket to America costs £100 but it is actually £250 because the other £150 covers surcharges and other costs. These are the cost of business and should be included in the overall price."

In nearly four years, BA has increased fuel surcharges ten times, mostly on long-haul flights. The carrier has reduced prices only once, on long-haul flights lasting less than nine hours, by £5 to £30.00.

However, BA increased the surcharge again three months later to £33.00.

On short-haul flights, a £2.50 surcharge was introduced in May 2004, rising to £10 today.

A spokeswoman at BA said the group's fuel bill had increased from £1 billion to £2 billion in three years, and that the surcharges were "fair, reasonable and justified".

She added that its fuel surcharge "is not directly related to the cost of fuel but directly linked to the price at which we can buy it". Like all other airline companies, BA hedges against the future price of fuel.

She said while the company had previously been able to buy fuel at a low price over a long period of time, the company was now purchasing more expensive crude for a shorter period.

In its annual report for 2004-05 when it introduced surcharges on passenger travel, BA saw its revenue from cargo and passenger surcharges rise by 36.9 per cent to £831 million while its fuel price reached £1.1 billion.

The following year, fuel costs rose to £1.6 billion while turnover generated from passenger and cargo fuel surcharges increased by 51.5 per cent to £1.1 billion.

In its most recent financial year, fuel costs reached £1.9 billion and revenue from surcharges fell to £519 million.

In August, BA pleaded guilty to charges of fixing fuel surcharges on both passenger and cargo flights between 2004 and 2006 and was fined $300 million by the US Department of Justice.

On price-fixing passenger surcharges, BA was also fined £121.5 million after Virgin blew the whistle on the practice after both airlines became the focus of an investigation into price-fixing.

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