British Airways (BA) has raised fuel surcharges on its longhaul flights for the eleventh time in less than four years, as it continued to blame high oil prices for the increase to passengers' ticket prices.

Flyers will now have to pay an extra £5 for each longhaul flight of less than nine hours, increasing the price of a single journey from £48 to £53, with a return flight now costing £106 from February 25.

Travellers on flights lasting nine hours or more will pay £128 for a return journey after a £6 increase on single tickets from £58 to £64.

The latest price rise follows BA's announcement that its fuel bill will top £2 billion this year. The move is unlikely to endear BA to passengers after it was voted the second worst airline in Europe for losing more bags and operating more delayed flights than any of its rivals.

Beaten only by Air Portugal, the Association of European Airlines found that nine passengers on a typical BA jumbo will find their bags are missing when they arrive at their destination.

Since May 2004, BA has introduced eleven price rises, and just one reduction, on longhaul flights which it maintains has been to counter the rising price of oil.

Last week, BA and Virgin Atlantic agreed to pay £100 million in compensation to settle a lawsuit that found the airlines had fixed fuel surcharges on longhaul flights. Almost six million customers will now receive about £20 each for being victims of price fixing.

BA has also been fined £121.5 million by the UK Office of Fair Trading for breaching competition law while the US Department of Justice fined the business a further $300 million for passenger and cargo price fixing.

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