The Saudi Arabian Airlines (Saudia) has increased the price of tickets to nine international destinations. The national airlines has informed its agents that new lump sum charges will be levied on already issued tickets as of Sunday. The new measure was prompted by steep hike in international fuel prices hike, Al-Watan reported. Similar measures have been adopted by Arab and foreign airlines at the beginning of the current quarter as additional charges ranging between $5 and $50 were levied to offset higher fuel prices. According to the details communicated by Saudia to various local agents, fuel charges levied on round trip tickets will be as follows: $100 for Europe and South Africa, $90 for the Mideast, the Arabian Gulf, North Africa and West Asia, and $120 for the Far East countries and the USA. Those itching to go abroad during summer holidays will now have to shell out more. The 30-40 percent increase in travel costs has put a damper on all those who are itching to go abroad during summer vacation. Other expenses, including hotel rates, consumer products' and food prices have already gone up by more than 50 percent worldwide. Sources in tourism sector are apprehensive that all these factors may force several people to abandon their travel plans altogether. A number of international airlines are currently scaling back their operations to tackle the unprecedented hike in fuel prices which have almost doubled over the past year. Some other airlines have laid off up to 5 percent of their workforce. A US agency specialized in providing labor counseling to the US aviation sector indicated that US airlines have phased out 22,000 jobs since the beginning of the current year. The agency cautioned that if this rate persists till year-end, axed jobs could reach more than 60,000. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) had announced in mid May that an increase of one cent in the price of airplane fuel translates into a fuel bill of $200 million for all airlines operating around the world. __
