Following the recent decrease in the price of oil, Virgin Atlantic have reduced the fuel surcharge from £30 to £25 per sector on all tickets sold from Monday 21st November 2005. A spokesperson for Virgin Atlantic said "We felt it only fair to pass it on to our passengers. However, future oil prices are predicted to be higher than current levels and we will keep the surcharge under review and adjust it when appropriate."

Fuel costs for Virgin Atlantic last year (end Feb 05) amounted to over £293m (22% of the airline's operating costs) - £60m higher than budgeted. The fuel surcharges only recovered around one third of this increase. It now looks likely that fuel could exceed £380m of costs in the current year. At that point fuel would amount to 25% of the airline's operating costs - an increase of 50% over two years.