Soaring airfares: Indian Aviation

“Airspeed, altitude, and brains. Two are always needed to complete the flight.”

Well, I was looking forward to express my views and opinions on the skyrocketing airfares in India which I have been noticing for quite some time now. So here I am, without digging into crisp economics and statistics.

The Trend:

I don’t want to sound too chatty here. India’s aviation market enjoys a good number of passenger figures, thanks to the low-cost and full service carriers, which continue to witness stiff competition in scheduling, fares and experience that ultimately winds the passengers.

Ever since the beginning of turbulent times for GoFirst (erstwhile Go Air) commenced in March 2023, well served international routes were curtailed, thus creating a void, which attracted other bees to rule the routes, not even sparing the prices on the domestic routes.

The other facet is that people are willing to spend more for holidays, which have led to increase in demand, thus enabling airlines to hike the ticket costs.

My observations:

• As a traveller who resides in Hyderabad, I often find it harrowing while booking flights that force me to connect via Delhi or Mumbai. Example: If I want to head to Sri Lanka from Hyderabad & vice-versa, then either I travel to Chennai via train and board an Air-India flight, that costs INR 6500 or shell out INR 20,000 for a direct one-way flight on Sri Lankan airlines. Oh, by the way, the Hyderabad to Colombo via Delhi on Air-India was reflecting INR 35000 one-way in economy. What is this? This is beyond the so called dynamic pricing.

• I find Alliance Air fares close to AC Volvo semi-sleeper bus prices. For example Hyderabad- Chennai, Hyderabad- Bengaluru. Hence I am okay with that.
• No flights operate on Hyderabad to Puducherry or Chennai to Puducherry, but there is one from Bengaluru. Weird though.

• I tried booking my return on IndiGo from Colombo through their mobile app. To my surprise, there were no flights listed on that route (as if did not exist), while the same I was able to check through Easemytrip, Yatra.com etc.
• Early morning & mid-morning flights are somewhat cheaper than afternoon or evening flights.
• I was amused (lol) when I found out that booking three months in advance still gave me a costly fare. Example: Hyderabad-Varanasi on IndiGo was INR 6700 one way per person. The same fare if I want to book 10–15 days prior, then it becomes 5000-ish INR.
• Similarly Hyderabad- Vishakhapatnam on Air-India is INR 6000 plus. Is anyone even regulating these prices?
• Travelling within India now feels expensive. I feel I can visit SAARC countries twice in the same fare.

Conclusion:

Post-Covid19, carriers in India have been trying to survive. Competition is fierce and with the changing dynamics, I feel a cap on prices is mandatory which will help keep the credit cards and wallets cool. I am not sure how the UDAN scheme is performing but I hope there are more cities on their radar. From a traveller’s perspective I do strongly feel that air fares should come down to a certain margin so that people like me will be benefited.

• by Pramod Sharma