Summer is a season for family trips. However, many parents purchase airline tickets and find that not only are children travelling by air less favourable than the half-priced train fare, but the child fare on some flights is even higher than the adult discount and the price is “inverted”. Where's the kid's ticket
The phenomenon: children on a flight cost half as much as adults
The adult ticket is $500, the child ticket is $820, and the price is over 60%. Recently, mr. Shimada planned to take his children to shanghai for a tour of shanghai, where he dropped his glasses while searching for a “big and small” ticket from beijing to shanghai. "the children's ticket is more expensive than the grown-ups'. It's hard to understand!" after further consideration, mr. Tai eventually chose to travel on high iron, with the child receiving a half-priced discount。
Interviews with the press revealed that mr. Tan was not an example of a situation in which many parents had experienced “back-to-back” prices when they purchased child tickets。
In mid-july, xiao yu’s mother took her child on holiday from tianjin to kunming and ordered a ticket for an adult of $830 and a child of $1380, representing a cost of over 60 per cent; ms. Wang also indicated that when she purchased a flight from the western tsai to kyoto in early august, it was $1325 for an adult and $1440 for a child and $115 for a child。
“some flights can buy children adult tickets. Look at the extra time, change the course, and don't rush." on social networking sites, many parents “go back to the bottom” and choose to buy adult tickets for children to benefit from discounts and to share their purchasing strategies with interest。
Some parents did buy it. In late july, citizen liu xin took his 5-year-old daughter to guangzhou for family visits, and after repeated searches of five or six online tourist platforms and airline networks, none of the children's tickets were found to be cheaper than adult tickets, resulting in the selection of a flight for children and adults at the same price。
“a child's ticket is preferably purchased on the airline's official network and usually a discount for an adult is available to the child.” liu xin then shared the experience of buying tickets with her friends, but she still felt helpless: “it seems that parents are so humble that it takes half a day to buy a ticket for their children at the same price as adults, not to mention the child-specific benefits”
Investigation: children's ticket prices on the same route are so volatile
The price of children's airline tickets is indeed confusing compared to the discount of clearly defined adult tickets。
Using the route of chengdu to beijing on 31 august as an example, journalists searched on an online tourism platform using “a small and a large” flight route, and randomly selected 10 flights at different prices and from different airlines for fares. The results showed that, when adult fares were two to three discounts, the child fare for six flights was higher than the adult fare, that one flight was flat and that the child fare for three flights was slightly lower than the adult fare。
For example, the adult fare for a flight is $520, the child fare is $1150 and the cost is $630; the adult fare for a flight is $658 and the child fare is $657 and a discount of $1; and the adult fare for a flight is equal to the child fare of $900。
It is noteworthy that when the child fare is higher than the adult fare, the difference varies from several to several hundred dollars; when the child fare is lower than the adult fare, the difference is only one or two dollars, which is largely negligible。
How does a child's ticket actually be priced? Journalists have seen that the platform's booking page shows that, in general, children's tickets represent 50 per cent of the total adult fare plus 50 per cent of the fuel bill, and that, for part of the country, the platform is smart enough to recommend the most favourable ticket purchase options, as the discount for adult tickets may be lower than for children。
As a result of the vagueness of this interpretation, journalists have made additional calls to the platform. The client's service indicates that the general adult ticket discount is less than 50%, which is cheaper than the children's ticket, so that some airlines, in order to attract tourists, sell children's tickets at an adult discount price, have the same price as the adult ticket. “in the case of insufficient passenger tickets, however, children's tickets may be sold at the normal price, i. E. 50% of the total fare, so that children's tickets would be more expensive than adult tickets. Some airlines bind children's tickets to specific accommodations, and if these low-cost accommodations are exhausted, the children will have to choose a higher-priced accommodation and will result in children's tickets being more expensive than adult tickets.”
Within the mainstream national airline network, journalists have also randomly selected multiple hot lanes for searches, showing that most divisions provide direct adult discounts for children; in some cases, children are offered both child and adult class tickets, where child fares are generally higher than adult tickets. For example, on a flight from beijing to xiamen on 18 august, the adult discount was $920, or approximately 30 per cent, and the child ticket price was $1560。
Disputes: children's capital fuel discounts on adult tickets lost
When a large number of platforms and airlines provide children with preferential adult tickets, i. E. “mix” with preferential prices for children's capital fuel, there are a number of follow-up problems, the most likely being disputes over capital fuel costs。
“according to a child's ticket at a preferential adult price, capital fuel should be taken at a child's ticket rate, but it was eventually found that it was calculated by adult standards.” recently, moo, a member of the internet, purchased two “one big and one small” tickets from hangzhou to qingdao on an online tourism platform, which showed that children could buy an adult discount of $533. After paying, moo found in the breakdown that children's tickets were charged for capital fuel at adult rates, a difference of $60。
First, moo responded to the platform's guest service, which indicated that travel could be reimbursed on the itinerary; then, after a complaint through the platform for monitoring the quality of civil aviation, 12326, moo received a text message from the platform stating that “the child chooses to pay the ticket according to the adult discount, that capital fuel is collected according to the adult standard and that the platform does not receive any more than the difference, so that it can be reversed”。
“i went to the airline's public number to verify the details of the payments with identification and ticket numbers, and found that the children's tickets had no capital fuel at all, and that the platform was making a random charge.” moo posted on the social network in anger and received a refund of $60 from the platform。
How are capital fuel charges for child tickets set? Journalists were informed by the network of airline officials that children were exempt from the civil aviation development fund and that fuel surcharges were halved for domestic routes. Specifically, each adult traveller is charged a fuel surcharge of $10 for a distance of 800 kilometres (including) and a child traveler free of charge; each adult traveller is charged a fuel surcharge of $20 for a distance of more than 800 kilometres and a child traveller of $10. In the case of flights purchased by mo, the cost of capital fuel for adults is $50 + $10, for a total of $60 and zero for children。
According to the survey, children are currently offered capital fuel discounts on most online tourism platforms, whether or not they are paid adult fares, but there are still individual platforms that charge capital fuel fees to adults when parents buy an adult discount for children。
In addition, journalists have noted that some airline child tickets are subject to a different waiver rule than adults. For example, xiamen air clearly shows on the booking page that when a child is purchased, a child ticket is paid free of charge within seven days of the scheduled take-off, and a 20 per cent refund is charged if an adult ticket is selected, while hainan air page shows that a child traveller who buys a ticket at an adult fare is subject to the corresponding accommodation rule, i. E., an adult passenger。
Appeal: dynamic adjustment to give a child a really good ticket
Under the law on the protection of minors, air passengers shall be subject to free or preferential fares for minors in accordance with the relevant provisions。
“there are many complaints about children's airline tickets, or, in the final analysis, about the unreasonable pricing rules for children's tickets, which cause many problems.” the parents have changed that the purchase of children's coupons, which are the legitimate interests of minors, is “stolen” when they are actually purchased — the preferential price for “stolen” adults is required, with careful attention to capital fuel concessions。
According to many civil aviation sources, the historical limitations of our rules for the pricing of airline tickets for children are clear and require a balance between policy flexibility and market patterns. The domestic transport rules for passengers and luggage of civil aviation in china, introduced in 1996, make it clear that children purchase 50 per cent of the total adult fare. This standard was extended to 2021, when the regulation of passenger services in public air transport was introduced, which gave air operators discretion in pricing, creating the current mechanism of 50 per cent of the “full fare” in parallel with the “market adjusted price”。
Under the two-track system, children's tickets are calculated at 50 per cent of the total fare when discounts are higher than 50 per cent of the total fare; when discounts are less than 50 per cent of the total fare, children's tickets are calculated at an adult discount. However, in the current civil aviation market, even during the active season, the discount rate for adult tickets is generally lower than 50 per cent, the former being in the form of a very poor situation and the child ticket preference has actually failed。
“why not give the child a fixed discount on the basis of an adult discount? Parents call for clearer rules for the pricing of child tickets. This call was also supported by experts。
According to chen weejiang, deputy secretary-general of the research institute for the protection of consumer rights and interests of the chinese society of law, child ticket preferences are an important part of the national welfare system and reflect the state’s interest in children’s groups. “when reduced adult ticket prices in the air market are generally lower or equal to those of ‘concessional’ children, the child ticket’s ‘concession’ will become a burden not only on children, but on children, as such ‘concession’ effectively denies them the right to normal market discounts.” chen yingjiang recommended that the pricing of child airline tickets should be adjusted dynamically, with preferential rates based on the actual fare paid by adults。
Guo jia, a senior civil aviation expert and a professor at the guangxi south business school, also suggested that airlines could evolve over time in the pricing of airline tickets and explore floating preferential schemes based on actual adult exchange rates. Only by keeping pace with changes in the market can the confusion of passengers over the “backward” price of children's airline tickets be resolved。
