British Airways and Virgin Atlantic have agreed to pay out a total of £102m to customers who were overcharged by the airlines between August 2004 and March 2006.

The airlines have agreed to a settlement with class action specialists Cohen Milstein Hausfield & Toll in a deal that now has to be ratified by the US courts.

Ripped-off customers who paid over the odds for fuel surcharges will be able to claim back between £1 and £11.50 per long-haul flight from British Airways and between £2 and £10 from Virgin.

Last year British Airways was fined £270m by UK and US competitions authorities for price fixing collusion while Virgin, though admitting complicity in the price fixing, escaped a fine after blowing the whistle on the practice.

A senior partner at Cohen Milstein said: “Customers in the UK should claim back what was unlawfully taken from them in order to demonstrate that such behaviour is unacceptable.”