The festival season is bringing cheer to the domestic airline industry with almost all players reporting daily passenger carriage of about 30,000 from about 26,000 previously.
“This year the passenger carriage has been much better than last year. Almost all flights between the metros have been sold out. There is also heavy rush on flights to Kerala, Goa and Rajasthan. This situation will continue till the first week of January,” a senior Air India official said.
A spokesperson for Jet Airways said that the airline had seen days in the past when the carriage was “30,000 plus”. Echoing similar sentiments a spokesperson for Kingfisher Airlines said that the airline has registered a double-digit growth in the number of passengers carried.
This has created a situation where fares are skyrocketing. Over the last weekend some airlines only had seats in business class for sectors such as Delhi-Bangalore priced over Rs 31,000. Three weeks earlier economy class seats were available for about Rs 5,500 on this sector. Similarly, a one-way ticket to Hyderabad was available for close to Rs 17,000 up from about Rs 5,500 earlier.
“The demand for air travel was up almost 30 per cent during the first three weeks of December as compared with the same period last year and as capacity did not go up in the same fashion, fares naturally moved up. The fare increase varies.
On flights to Kolkata the increase will probably be more than what it will be on the Mumbai sector as capacity outstrips demand to that city,” Mr Ankur Bhatia, Managing Director, Amadeus Indian Subcontinent, added.
The passenger traffic data released by the Government shows that there has been an increase of 5.4 per cent during January-November this year as compared to the same period in the previous year.
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