There are a lot of elements that go into the price of a flight, from staff costs to government fees to landing gate charges at airports. One big variable—and the ones most airlines use to justify all kinds of add-ons and extras—is the price of fuel. Well how much does it really cost to carry each passenger a thousand miles through the air?

Spirit Air is doing its best to figure that out and share it with its customers. It has published a handy dandy chart showing how much it costs them in fuel to go a certain range of distance. You can see the full breakdown at this link, but here are a few examples:

• A short hop of 400 to 599 miles costs them $21.67 at current fuel rates
• Going 800 to 999 miles is a shade over $30
• Their longest hauls of 2000+ miles costs $78 per passenger in fuel

So to put that in real terms, for Ft. Lauderdale to Cancun, fuel is only around $22. Flying all the way to Lima from there, fuel is more than $78 per passenger. All these rates assume an 80% load factor, so if the flight is jammed full the actual cost per person would be a bit less. I’m not sure how cargo is figured in. And what if my seatmate weighs twice as much as I do? Should those who can’t fit in a regular airline seat multiply by two?

Think about this next time you see a $300 “fuel surcharge” on your legacy airline flight to Europe. Where’s that money really going? Why isn’t it just included in the price of the ticket?

When you see these fuel prices though, it makes Spirit’s cheap fares look even better, especially if you’re part of that $9 fare club. If you can snag one of those rates, you are flying for less than the cost of the fuel, never mind all the other costs the airline bears. So smile when you pay that checked baggage fee or a swipe your credit card for a cup of coffee in the air. Chances are those fees might not even get you back to even.

If you just want to get from point A to point B and have plenty of cash left over for spending after arrival, Spirit Air serves many Latin American destinations besides Cancun and Lima. They’ll get you to Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama, and four locations in Colombia.

More on airlines serving Latin America. Thanks to SmarterTravel for the original post on this.

A few notable travel-related news bites from around the Americas…

- Honduras situation resolved…sort of. The U.S. dropped Honduras from its travel advisory after recent elections had a good turnout and went peacefully. Unfortunately, that’s still not the end of it since most governments are not recognizing the new leader as legit and the kicked-out former president is still holed up in the Brazilian embassy. Bottom line though, traveling there should not be affected while this is worked out and places where tourists spend any time, like Roatan and Copan, were never impacted much to start with.

- Speaking of Honduras, lovely Pico Bonito Lodge is offering a 2-for-1 special through January 3.

- We recently reviewed the new Bristol Buenaventura hotel, but parts of it were still under construction at opening. Tomorrow the spa officially opens.

- During the annual World Travel Market  held  in London, the members of LATA (Latin American Travel Association) chose Awasi as the Best Boutique Hotel in Latin America, for the second consecutive year. Awasi is located in the Atacama region of Chile.

- Argentina is once again threatening to impose a reciprocal visa fee ($131 for Americans) for foreigners landing in Buenos Aires by air. Each time they have announced this in the past it has been struck down, presumably because the massively important ourism industry would take a huge hit if it goes into motion, right during a worldwide recession that is especially affecting Argentina. We’ll see if common sense prevails again or if Argentina follows the path of countries that receive fewer North American visitors, like Brazil and Bolivia.

There’s apparently something in the water in Central America that inspires their tourism boards to latch onto silly and meaningless slogans like a birdwatcher reaching for binoculars. The latest one to earn guffaws and ridicule is Panama’s, which is a year old but just got pilloried by this Jaunted post: Panama Picks A Tourism Slogan Reminiscent Of Childhood Trauma, STDs.

What is this inspired tourism slogan? “Panama – It Will Never Leave You.”

Could it be any worse? Panama watchers are having a heyday with this one, wondering whether it refers to malaria, dengue fever, stalkers, or something picked up from a prostitute. That’s one way to get honest feedback I guess. Just put out your new slogan and see how many people make fun of it on blogs and twitter. (If nobody does, it probably means your slogan is just boring, since few of these things seem to actually move the needle in terms of visitors anyway. But better to be boring than a laughing stock.)

Back in 2006, Guatemala launched the focus-group-inspired slogan “Soul of the Earth” and they’ve stuck with it ever since. WTF?! I don’t even know what that is supposed to mean, much less how it applies to Guatemala and not any of its neighbors. Will there be shamans and chanting involved? Or spelunking? Will I feel the ground vibrate during the summer solstice?

Honduras appears to have used three slogans in as many years. I’ve got a hat a local tourism person gave me with the Spanish version of their slogan “One small country, three big worlds.” I put this into an article I wrote for another publication after I returned from there because I thought it nicely summed up the answer to the inevitable question, “Why go there?” You go because you’ve got a great Maya ruins site, nature preserves, and the coral-fringed islands. So the slogan actually means something.

Alas, I then got a wrist slapping from a PR and advertising agency person who had worked with me setting up part of my research there. Apparently her agency had spent tons of money on focus groups and reports to come up with a brand new slogan: “The Central America you know — the country you’ll love.”

Again, are you kidding me? You could slap that same tag line onto Costa Rica, Guatemala, or Panama and nobody would know the difference. That slogan is still up on the agency-built website, but there was yet another one in between those two for a brief time: “It’s All Here In Honduras.” Apparently it wasn’t all there after all. But now Honduras really is looking like “the Central America you know,” coup d’etats and all.

El Salvador and Nicaragua both go for a one-word slogan. Nicaragua’s is simply, “Unique.” El Salvador went for “Impressive!” Well, the waves are impressively grarly in El Salvador I guess and Nicaragua is unique in being the poorest mainland country in the Americas, but neither slogan does much to sell the destination or paint a picture of why anyone should visit. How about just saying, “We’re generic”? Or “You’ll probably have a good time if you come here on vacation.” Pretty much the same thing.

Belize has “Mother Nature’s best-kept secret.” Maybe Mother Nature’s best-kept secret is that the soul of the Earth is actually in Guatemala. And Belize isn’t exactly a secret anymore. But really, at least that one at least doesn’t leave you scratching your head.

So are there any Central American destination slogans that really work? Yes one, and it’s no coincidence that it’s from the country that gets the most tourists by far.

“Costa Rica: no artificial ingredients.”

Nicely played Ticos.

In case you missed it in all the 24/7 Michael Jackson coverage, there was a military coup in Honduras over the weekend.

If your travel plans in the coming weeks had something to do with Honduras, you may want to keep an eye on the news. This story has more layers than a big fat onion, but the headline version is that there has been a coup and the legally elected president was put on a plane and sent to Costa Rica. He’s no angel either, and he had just sacked the head of the military and tried to pull a Chavez and alter the constitution to serve longer. It’s messy.

Honduras is not Iran, however, and things have remained pretty calm on the mainland. They may not stay that way, but for now, no bloodshed. On Roatan and Utila, the divers are probably oblivious, so if you’re just flying into an island and flying out, there’s probably no need to change plans.

Just stay up on what’s happening. Honduras This Week is the local English language paper and it has a good website. Otherwise log into the BBC or just pull up Google or Yahoo news for Honduras.

My last experience with the airline TACA, in Peru, didn’t start off well. Picture four gate agents and three luggage handoff points for a line stretching halfway down the Cusco terminal. It took 65 minutes to get to the front. The flight was delayed anyway, then delayed again waiting for the plane to get there from elsewhere. The 7:55 a.m. flight I’d arrived two hours early for ended up leaving at noon.

The crew tried their best though. They even gave us a sandwich and coffee at the gate to make up for it. Considering I paid $76 for the flight, I didn’t feel much of a right to be indignant.

In the air, it went fine. We got more food and a soda, which already put TACA way ahead of pricier competitor LAN. There was a business class section too, with wider seats, better food, and alcoholic beverages. The bi-lingual flight attendants were pleasant.

I had a simliar experience when I flew TACA in Guatemala, round-trip between Antigua and Flores (Tikal). They’re not perfect and you often have to do a good bit of hopscotching to get from one country in Central America to another since their hub is in El Salvador. But overall they deliver good value and make it easy to upgrade to their business class.

TACA flies three Airbus and one Embraer models that seat between 96 and 194 on their main routes. For more obscure in-country ones you could end up on something smaller. They have call centers in 25 countries and fly to nearly all the capital cities of Central and South America. TACA has flights from eight cities in the U.S. plus Toronto, but unless you’re going to Roatan you’ll probably have to make a connection in San Salvador.

See route maps and current deals at TACA.COM
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