Reacting to a public outcry over a sudden surge in domestic airfares last month, civil aviation minister Praful Patel had ordered domestic airlines to inform aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation ( DGCA) of their proposed price bands. Patel is unlikely to be amused by the result.
Low- cost carriers ( LCCs) have proposed a cap on economy fares on Delhi- Chennai and Delhi- Mumbai at an astonishing Rs 22,000 and Rs17,000 one way for December.
Full service carriers Kingfisher, Jet and Air India have gone a step further and proposed a maximum of Rs 35,000 and Rs 25,000 respectively for these routes.
These rates are nearly five times the average fares prevalent in October. The airlines have worked out their new fare for December on four different distance bands: up to 750 kms; 750-1,000 kms; 1,000-1,400 kms and above 1,400 km. While the distance band will remain in these four categories, the range of fares would vary every month.
Although full service carriers file their range of fares based on US Airline Tariff Publishing Company, which feeds the global distribution system used by websites and agents LCCs have their own system of filing ranges. However, in both cases the fliers have been kept in dark about the airlines overcharging from them as it has not been a practice of airlines sharing details about the maximum they are charging for that month.
Reacting sharply, Patel said these proposals do not have a “guarantee” of approval. “We will look into the interest of the aam admi as well and there will be no exorbitant fares,” he told a TV channel.
The civil aviation ministry is expected to take a call on the issue as air traffic in the country has been on a steady rise in recent months and has increased by 18.3 per cent during January –October this year.
The government is also concerned about airlines overcharging as December and January are peak season for travelers and airlines in India make most of their profits during this period. A senior ministry official said the entire purpose of keeping fares under check is futile if airlines propose such inflated fares.
After studying the proposals, they will be fine tuned if need be to make them more consumer-friendly, a ministry official said. The ministry is likely to implement the new system "very soon," he added.
However the ministry has also said that the government will not interfere in fare determination but will take steps to ensure that passengers are not charged more than the maximum fares determined by airlines to cash in on crunch situations.
The newly appointed aviation secretary Nasim Zaidi, during his stint as the head of DGCA, had last month intervened when fares on routes like Delhi- Mumbai had shot up by over 300 per cent. He had also asked airlines to submit a route-wise tariff range every month.
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