Air fares soar as IndiGo cancels flights

  • | Sunday | 17th February, 2019

CHENNAI: Air fares to most domestic destinations from Chennai remain high as Indi-Go is cancelling flights daily. Airlines, which have cancelled flights are accommodating their customers on their flights itself but new bookings are being sold at a huge premium.” Though the number of flights cancelled is fewer in Chennai, some of the cancelled schedules include red eye flights and peak hour services to small towns. Flight fares for major domestic sectors have seen an average increase of 20-25%. The airline is expected to cancel flights daily at least till the end of next month.Travel and tour operators say that air fares have increased by as much as 30% on most of the routes, especially on morning peak hour flights to small towns.

CHENNAI: Air fares to most domestic destinations from Chennai remain high as Indi-Go is cancelling flights daily. Though the number of flights cancelled is fewer in Chennai, some of the cancelled schedules include red eye flights and peak hour services to small towns. The airline is expected to cancel flights daily at least till the end of next month.Travel and tour operators say that air fares have increased by as much as 30% on most of the routes, especially on morning peak hour flights to small towns. The airline had cancelled its flights from Chennai to Thiruvananthapuram and Coimbatore last week.Seats for Chennai-Mumbai flights for the upcoming week is selling at Rs 7,900 on Tuesday while the tickets are priced between Rs 4,200 to Rs 5,900. The last-minute fare on Chennai–Thiruvananthapuram route was between Rs 5,300 and Rs Rs6,500.The fares have increased because the airline has the most number of slots during peak hours and also connecting small towns as part of its push to have more flights on regional routes.Aloke Bajpai, CEO and co-founder, Ixigo, said, “Several factors like the runway repairs at Mumbai airport and cancellation of flights by Indigo airlines have had a ripple impact on the last-minute airfares. Flight fares for major domestic sectors have seen an average increase of 20-25%. Our ‘fare intelligence’ feature shows that prices for routes like Kolkata–Bangalore, Kolkata–Chennai and Hyderabad–Kolkata are likely to increase further by 12–15% over the next 15 days. On the other hand, fares for routes like Kolkata–Delhi and Ahmedabad–Bangalore are likely to fall by the same rate if booked after 10 days.”According to Neelu Singh, CEO and MD of Ezeego1, “The huge cancellation has taken people by surprise as it has affected their holiday plans. Now is the time people book for their summer vacations and are unsure whether airlines will honour their flight schedules.”Indigo is offering free cancellation of tickets and reallocation of flights when a flight is cancelled. However, they are not able to allot seats on flights—that makes passengers comfortable. The airline recently reallotted seats for passengers of a red-eye flight to Thiruvananthapuram on a flight that was to depart at 11am the next day. Many refused it because they had to be in the city early in the morning the next day, said an airport official.According to John Nair, head, business travel, Cox & Kings, “In the last week, there have been cancellations across airlines and this has led to over 30% increase in airfares. Airlines, which have cancelled flights are accommodating their customers on their flights itself but new bookings are being sold at a huge premium.”

If You Like This Story, Support NYOOOZ

NYOOOZ SUPPORTER

NYOOOZ FRIEND

Your support to NYOOOZ will help us to continue create and publish news for and from smaller cities, which also need equal voice as much as citizens living in bigger cities have through mainstream media organizations.


Stay updated with all the Chennai Latest News headlines here. For more exclusive & live news updates from all around India, stay connected with NYOOOZ.

Related Articles