It’s bonanza time for travellers this week. After Jet Airways slashed fares by 50 per cent on Sunday, other airlines have started cutting fares by almost 20-30 per cent.
Low-cost carrier GoAir on Monday dropped fares to match Jet fares, according to Mr Keyur Joshi, COO and co-founder of MakeMyTrip, a travel portal.
According to travel agents, on the Mumbai-Delhi route, GoAir normally charges Rs 2,400 (one way). The fare was cut to Rs 2,061 for travel during this week.
One-way tickets on trunk routes such as Mumbai-Chennai and Mumbai-Bangalore were available in the range of Rs 1,900-2,100. Lean-hour travel, in the afternoons, was even cheaper at around Rs 1,800. On MakeMyTrip.com, the Mumbai-Delhi GoAir flight at 12:40 p.m. costs only Rs 1,854.
Mr Joshi said other airlines may also join the price war, if Jet Airways tries to extend this distress sale beyond this week.
According to fares on cleartrip.com, a ticket on the Mumbai-Bangalore Air India flight at 9:10 a.m. was available for Rs 2,073. However, the Air India spokesperson denied any kind of price reduction by the airline.
“This is definitely a knee jerk reaction to what Jet Airways announcement,” said Mr Ajay Prakash, General Secretary, Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI).
Jet Airways, which had lost nearly Rs 60-crore business to competition during the five-day impasse, had decided to slash economy ticket prices by a flat 50 per cent on its flagship airline as well as Jet Konnect flights for this week.
A Mumbai-based traveller buying a ticket between September 14 and 18 to New Delhi on Jet Airways will now have to pay only Rs 2,500 as against Rs 4,200.
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