Airlines lower overall fares

New Delhi -Air travellers can breathe easy ahead of Christmas and New Year festivities as low-cost domestic airlines have slashed their average fares by 20-25 per cent on Sunday following intense pressure from the government.

The lowering of tariffs will come as a relief to passengers who were forced to pay up to 200 per cent of the normal fares on spot or last-minute bookings in the past weeks.

The move comes after officials of the Civil Aviation Ministry and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) met executives from no-frill carriers, including SpiceJet, IndiGo and GoAir, and asked them to bring down spot fares.

Meeting

The DGCA will meet officials of full-service carriers Air India, Jet Airways and Kingfisher on Monday to review their fares.

According to travel agents and airline websites, a Delhi-Mumbai ticket is now available for Rs 5,000-Rs 14,000, while the Delhi-Chennai fare is down to Rs 6,000-Rs 15,000. A Delhi-Bangalore late evening flight on Sunday was available for Rs 10,000.

In comparison, earlier fares for tickets booked about 24 hours in advance ranged between Rs 20,000 and Rs 40,000 on some of these routes. "We have asked the airlines to be reasonable about their demands and to be transparent about their bucket seats," said newly appointed DGCA director E K Bharat Bhushan after the meeting with leading low-cost carriers in Delhi.

Bought in advance, air tickets from Delhi to Mumbai, Bangalore and Thiruvananthapuram will be available within the respective ranges of Rs 6,000-Rs 3,000; Rs 6,000-Rs 3,500 and Rs 15,000-Rs 9,000.

Earlier, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel had warned the carriers of "strong action" if they did not bring down the tariffs.

Patel said orchestrated increase in price by all carriers smacked of a "cartel".

The DGCA asked the airlines to furnish a copy of the established tariff, route-wise across its network in various fare categories in the manner it is offered in the market, to the DGCA on the first day of every month, said an official.

Maintaining records

Any significant and noticeable change in the established tariff should be reported to the DGCA within 24 hours.

The carriers have been instructed to maintain all records pertaining to established tariff and publish fares on their respective websites and newspapers.

However, Kingfisher Airline chairman Vijay Mallya said the issue of airfare hike was being hyped by the media and that in reality passengers pay far lesser than what is being portrayed.

Rebutting Mallya's statement that government should not regulate airfares, officials said the government's intention was to bring in more transparency in the fixing of fares by airlines.

"The passenger should know what they are paying," they added.

Dec 5, DHNS and Agencies :