“Middle East” and “its sisters” are levying fake fees

“Middle East” and “its sisters” are levying fake fees
“Middle East” and “its sisters” are levying fake fees
About 4.5 million dollars a year is a “favor” imposed by airlines in Lebanon, including the “Middle East Airlines” which monopolizes the aviation market, to travelers in exchange for “printing” travel tickets that have been electronic for 13 years!These “fees” go back to 1999, when, through the “efforts” of the then-director of the International Aviation Federation, Imad Abdel-Malik, they were added to the ticket price. According to what a number of old travel agency owners confirm to “Al-Akhbar.”
On 01/01/2007, the adoption of the electronic ticket began and printing has been decommissioned, but the fee is still in effect.
According to the estimates of the Syndicate of Travel Agencies in Lebanon, the annual rate of sales of air tickets reaches about one million and 400 thousand tickets, which means that about four million and 620 thousand dollars annually are paid by travelers, without others in the rest of the countries, in exchange for a “fake” service!
While insiders confirm that the fate of these funds “is unknown, as they do not flow into the state’s finances.”
Secretary of the Travel Offices Syndicate, Raymond Wahba, explained to Al-Akhbar that the union receives many complaints from office owners due to the implications of unreasonable taxes that are added to ticket prices, including the YL tax, pointing out that “high ticket prices, contrary to what is rumored, no It is in the interest of the travel agency owners who are nothing but collectors of travelers’ money. ” And confirming that the Syndicate is seeking to move this file to demand the cancellation of the fee, he pointed out that “the only one concerned with canceling it is the airlines that will not, of course, give up the annual revenues resulting from it.”
Perhaps what reinforces the “illegality” of this fee is the recognition by those concerned with the International Aviation Federation of the owner of one of the major travel offices in Lebanon (who refused to be named) of his right to recover the money he paid for “printing” tickets, after the latter decided to sue the Etihad over the collection of fees. “It has no basis,” “the Lebanese judiciary is still looking into the case brought by us about nine months ago.”
There is an “axiom” in the aviation “market” stating that national airlines have the ability to establish “norms” in the sector and “force” the rest of the companies to adopt their “recommendations”. Accordingly, the cancellation or maintenance of the drawing depends on the position of “Middle East”. Al-Akhbar tried to communicate with the concerned persons in the company to inquire about the fee, but no one responded to the repeated calls.

The primary beneficiaries of the “fake” fee are airlines and “Middle East”, not the state

The imposition of “fake” fees and taxes on the sales of air tickets in Lebanon is not surprising, as the ticket pricing previously included a tax of about 4 US dollars that was symbolized by “VL”, which was designated, according to a decree issued after the war, to build the sports city. And this tax remained levied for many years after the completion of the city’s construction, before it was canceled by the efforts of the owners of travel agencies, which means that the option to cancel this fee is achievable if the necessary pressure is provided.
Nine years ago, on February 3, 2011, then Minister of Tourism Fadi Abboud held a press conference in which he addressed the pricing of travel cards and detailing fees and taxes, out of the necessity to devise a strategy to stimulate work in the tourism sector. At the time, Abboud reviewed the tax components of the price of a plane ticket in Lebanon, which makes it more expensive than others, including the YL fee. And the clearest conclusion that came out in his press conference at the time, saying that the main problem lies in “how to install the price of a plane ticket, where companies use the umbrella of taxes and fees and rotate the sums to collect money for their benefit without any logic.” (See scam on tickets). Nine years and the reality is still the same, while the current poor state of the travel sector in Lebanon imposes a rule of “new mentality and a different approach,” as Wahba put it.


The departure fee is subject to an additional profit
One of the components of the tax on air ticket pricing is the so-called departure fee, which Lebanese laws have set at about 50,000 pounds. Under the necessity of “converting” these fees into dollars, which were previously set at about $ 33.3.
Currently, airlines pay these fees to the Ministry of Finance in lira, while travelers pay them in dollars. Accordingly, these companies collect huge profits, including “Middle East”, due to the difference in exchange rates.
According to recent figures from the Ministry of Finance, the total fees for leaving the Lebanese territories amounted to about 86 billion pounds last year, while the current year reached about 43 billion pounds, which means that it decreased by 50%, with an estimated difference of 43 billion pounds. Therefore, if the companies had paid the fees according to the new exchange rate, the money that would go to finance would have been doubled.

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