What exactly do the taxes when buying a plane ticket cover?

Question

I want to take a flight to London this summer and found a deal for $229.00. Sounds good until I was told that the taxes are $518.00. Then pay for baggage and governnment taxes on top of that. What exactly are these taxes paying for that it can take a flight from $200 to $750? More importantly, why are they getting away with this?

Answer 1

Right now the biggest surcharge is the fuel surcharge being collected. Most international flights just raised theirs to 151.00 each way.

Here is basically the break down of tax's on an international ticket

US International transportation tax 15.40

Domestic transportation tax 7.5 percent

US Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service 5.00

Immigration Inspection fee 7.00

Custom user fee 5.50

Passenger Facility Charge 3-4.50 per airport

Passenger civil Aviation security fee ( per segment max 5.00 one way 10.00 round trip)

Transatlantic Security surcharge of 65.00

Answer 2

Also, some countries will charge you to overfly them, even if the flight is not coming from/going to that country.

Lots of people travel between the US and Europe.  Except for the extreme East of the US, these flights have to go over Canada (or burn lots more fuel diverting around it), due to "the great circle route".  Canada said "hey, we can make some money off of this!" and charge a fee.  It only makes sense - their aircraft controllers are doing work, so should get compensated.

Canada is just the example I gave - other countries do this as well.