Last spring Aer Lingus added a fuel surcharge on their long haul flights. It's not reflected in the ticket price, but rather is one of those extras that you only find out about when you get close to paying for the tickets. The surcharge is €80 (about $104) on a round trip ticket, which is around 20% of the cost of a round trip ticket to the New York these days.
The fuel surcharge was implemented because oil was trading at around $75 per barrel. Today, oil is close to $50, so when will the surcharge be reduced or dropped? Great to see Ryanair make an issue out of the surcharge yesterday, even though Ryanair is the king of extra charges. Just forcing Aer Lingus to say that they're monitoring the situation is better than just wondering if the surcharge is a permanent (sneaky) feature of Aer Lingus's air fares.
