British Airways (BA), the national flag carrier at the centre of the T5 debacle, today announced its twelfth increase in fuel surcharges in four years as it continued to blame high oil prices for the rising cost of customers' tickets.

From today, passengers on return long haul flights of less than nine hours will pay an extra £20, taking the total charge to £126. On journeys of more than nine hours, the charge will rise by £30, adding £158 for a return flight.

Short haul travellers will also see prices rise, up from £20 to an extra £26 per flight.

The increases will come into force on May 2, and BA said: "The decision reflects continuing high oil prices." Earlier this year, BA claimed that due to rising oil prices, its annual fuel price will hit £2 billion for the first time.

The price of oil neared a record high of $120 a barrel today, before settling back at $118. BP announced a 48 per cent rise in profits to $6.6 billion for the first quarter while its Anglo Dutch rival, Shell, reported income up 12 per cent to $7.8 billion during the same period.

Since 2004, when BA introduced fuel surcharges at £2.50, the extra cost on a nine hour or less long haul ticket has swelled by 2,500 per cent, and above that flight time, by 3,000 per cent.

Today's increase - the second this year on long haul flights - was announced weeks after BA opened Heathrow's Terminal 5, only to have waylaid thousands of bags, cancelled hundreds of flights and announced the exit of two of the company's most long-serving executives.

Last year, BA was fined £121.5 million by the Office of Fair Trading and a further $300 million by the US Department of Justice after it was found guilty of conspiring to fix fuel surcharges. Virgin Atlantic escaped punishment after it came forward to expose the collusion.

In February, BA and Virgin Atlantic agreed to pay up to £100 million in compensation to travellers who had been affected by the price rising on trans-Atlantic flights.

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