Fuel surcharges are imposed by air carriers of their own volition, not required by any government, regulator, airline, or similar authority. However, LOT has systematically mischaracterized these fuel surcharges as “tax.”
See the test booking shown in Figure 1. In testing of February 25, 2013, we requested an ordinary paid coach ticket LHR-WAW-JFK on the LOT Poland Airlines web site. LOT quoted a fare of "flights" costing $525 plus “taxes” of $550.13. Clicking the hyperlink labeled “taxes” yielded the window shown in Figure 2.
Figure 1: LOT falsely claims $550.13 of "taxes"
Figure 2: LOT admits that $314 of the "taxes" is actually a "surcharge" -- yet LOT then reiterates that this is a "tax" in the bottom of the itemization ("total taxes")