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How much you pay in taxes and charges varies from route to route. A  £47 British Airways excursion between London Heathrow and Edinburgh attracts £21.70 in taxes and charges, while a £120 Crossair excursion to Prague fromLondon City is surcharged by a whopping £51.60.

And how about the crazy situation with Ryanair? A current £9 offer to Aarhus in Denmark is inflated by extras amounting to £26.60...

With almost every cheap ticket, the fare element is non-refundable if you cannot use your ticket. That's understandable and should be explained at the time of booking. But what about the taxes and charges? Surely they have to be refunded because, after all, you have not used your ticket and neither have you used any airport facilities.

In theory that is the case but in practice the airlines are increasingly reluctant - to the point of totally refusing - to refund the charges.

It's not difficult to see why: in an industry in which every penny counts, holding on to these charges adds many thousands of pounds to the airlines' bottom line.

"No airline refunds taxes and charges voluntarily," said Simon Evans, spokesman for the Government-funded Air Transport Users Council (AUC) consumer group. "It's up to you to ask."

One reason they dislike giving refunds, say the airlines, is the cost of the paperwork. "We don't encourage passengers to claim back the cost of their taxes and so on," admitted one airline executive. "It would be so expensive for us because of the administration involved."

Not surprisingly the budget airlines are among the worst offenders. easyJet, for example, levies £22.20 in taxes on a London-Athens ticket and although its website (www.easyjet.com) states that tickets are non-refundable, it is silent on the question of the tax element.

When I telephoned easyJet on two separate occasions to find out about the possibility of a tax refund I was told by two different reservationists that the entire ticket price was non-refundable. On the first occasion, I did what most travellers would do: I meekly accepted the explanation and rang off. But on the second occasion I stood my ground and asked to speak to the supervisor.

After a lengthy consultation, I was finally told that I would be entitled to a refund of the taxes provided I wrote a letter stating my case.

But the chances of getting back any refund from an unused excursion ticket issued by another budget airline, Go, are zero. That's because Go will only quote all-inclusive prices and declines to provide a breakdown of the various taxes and charges.

"Showing the cost of these items on the ticket would move away from our simple system," said sales and marketing director David Magliano.

"We only quote totally inclusive prices and so, if the taxes change, we just absorb the difference. We've had very few customer complaints about our policy." (Note: If you buy a Go flexible ticket - which costs several times more than an excursion - and can't travel then you get the entire price credited towards another trip. Go does not provide any form of cash refund).

By now, readers must be thinking that, by extracting money as "tax" which is then, if the flight is cancelled, neither paid to the Government nor handed back to the passenger, the airlines appear guilty of tax evasion on the one hand and consumer fraud on the other. But, surprisingly, they are acting within the law.

Take, for instance, the portion of the taxes which comprise the Government's Airline Passenger Duty (APD). A spokeswoman for HM Customs & Excise explains the situation: "We have no legal powers to intervene. The duty point (the moment at which the tax becomes payable) occurs when the plane takes off, so the airlines need pay no tax until that time - and no tax is payable if the passenger doesn't travel."

Although the airlines make passengers pay APD when they buy their ticket, "the money paid at that time cannot be considered tax," adds the spokeswoman. Therefore passengers believe they're paying tax, when in fact they are not."

There is another twist to the story. The public has been led to believe that direct selling either by telephone or via the Internet is a good thing. But the case of tax refunding provides an example of where you would be better protected by going through a travel agent.

Airline websites are designed to accept new bookings, not to deal with cancellations. And when you telephone to ask about the possibility of a refund, staff are most unlikely to prompt you to apply for the cost of the taxes and charges.

But a good travel agent will act on your behalf. Trailfinders, for one, will refund all taxes. And Jim Foster, manager of London-based First Call Travel, said: "We get tax refunded for our clients even though some airlines put obstacles in our way."

Until consumer pressure or a change in the law forces the airlines to adopt new prodecures, airlines will continue to exploit the situation.

Buyer beware.