Travellers worried over high air fares, 2 in 3 want fare caps back: survey

The survey received over 22,000 responses from consumers located in 297 districts. Among the respondents, 47% were from Tier-1, 34% from Tier-2, and 19% respondents were from Tier-3,4 and rural districts. 

The survey asked fliers whether the government should bring back fare caps, to which around 12,193 responses were received with 65% airline fliers in favour of a limit on fares while 21% are against the same. 

After a two-month suspension of scheduled commercial passenger flights, India had resumed domestic flights from May 2020 but had imposed seven sets of floor and ceiling for seven categories of route lengths covering the entire domestic network. More than two years later, the government removed the fare caps with effect from Aug 31 and let the fares be determined by the market forces of demand and supply. 

The discontinuation of fare caps had led to a 30% drop in airfares across routes in September, offering some relief to travellers who had to pay up eye-watering fares over the preceding months as airlines passed on soaring fuel prices to customers. While fares may not skyrocket as compared to September levels, they are set to be higher in the current quarter as the demand is expected to surge until December, an aviation analyst said. 

Online travel operator Cleartrip has seen around a 6% increase in airfares for the current quarter from September. For the 21-31 December period, rival Ixigo has witnessed a 44% on-year rise in airfares for the Bengaluru-Kolkata route, a 40% rise in the New Delhi-Goa route and a 15% rise in the New Delhi-Bengaluru route. 

The respondents in the LocalCircles survey also complained of more expensive fares by low-cost carriers as compared to full-service airlines. The survey asked respondents of such instances, to which nearly 10,000 responses were received and overall 79% respondents said that they have seen steeper fares for a no-frills service at times during the past 12 months. Around 50% respondents said that they have found low-cost airline fares more expensive than a full-service ‘very often’ over the last 12 months, 22% said they found such a scenario ‘sometimes,’ while 7% respondents said that they have experienced such a situation ‘once in a while.’ 

The verdict on whether the removal of fare caps has worked in favour of passengers is mixed as travel agents claim that it has worked in favour of passengers in only a few sectors while in most sectors the fares on offer remain high despite growing appetite for travel after long months of restricted movements due to the pandemic, the survey further said. 

In fact, the fares on Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi-Hyderabad among others have increased over 20% partly due to rise in jet fuel prices and partly as airlines strive to recoup their losses by capitalizing on higher demand, the survey added.