MUMBAI: The festive season travel demand has sent airfares for non-stop flights on many domestic routes sending up. This is being seen with fares from Mumbai to places like Dehradun, Srinagar, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow. Patna, Kochi. Airfare to foreign destinations open to Indians is also higher, with the exception of Male, where fares are currently cheaper than some domestic destinations.
There is a pattern for domestic fares – return tickets tend to cost more, especially if the return is on a Sunday or a weekend. Passengers who have not booked air tickets for October-November Diwali Travel can avoid high fares and get 20-30% cheaper return fares by opting for a weekday return. For example, on Saturdays, on Mumbai-Dehradun non-stop flights at the end of October and on Sundays on November 7, the cheapest return fare starts at Rs 35,000. It was Rs 29,300 on Monday, November 8.
A yatra.com spokesperson said: “For hotels and flights, we have seen a 40-50% increase in booking queries with the approaching of the festive season.”
Rikant Pitti, Co-Founder, EasyMyTripAround, said, “We have seen that by the end of Diwali and the end of the day airfares may increase by about 70 per cent. Earlier, we saw a jump of around 65% on air bookings for the long weekend of Ganesh Chaturthi and 54% on air bookings for the long weekend of Janmashtami. This indicates the trend where people are using the festive season to travel. So we expect travel bookings to pick up during the festive season.
Not only are the fares high on international routes, but there is also a shortage of seats on non-stop flights. Anoop Kanuga ns Bathija Travels Said: “India should allow airlines to gradually increase capacity on international routes by at least 15-25% per month, till they reach pre-Covid capacity.”
There is a pattern for domestic fares – return tickets tend to cost more, especially if the return is on a Sunday or a weekend. Passengers who have not booked air tickets for October-November Diwali Travel can avoid high fares and get 20-30% cheaper return fares by opting for a weekday return. For example, on Saturdays, on Mumbai-Dehradun non-stop flights at the end of October and on Sundays on November 7, the cheapest return fare starts at Rs 35,000. It was Rs 29,300 on Monday, November 8.
A yatra.com spokesperson said: “For hotels and flights, we have seen a 40-50% increase in booking queries with the approaching of the festive season.”
Rikant Pitti, Co-Founder, EasyMyTripAround, said, “We have seen that by the end of Diwali and the end of the day airfares may increase by about 70 per cent. Earlier, we saw a jump of around 65% on air bookings for the long weekend of Ganesh Chaturthi and 54% on air bookings for the long weekend of Janmashtami. This indicates the trend where people are using the festive season to travel. So we expect travel bookings to pick up during the festive season.
Not only are the fares high on international routes, but there is also a shortage of seats on non-stop flights. Anoop Kanuga ns Bathija Travels Said: “India should allow airlines to gradually increase capacity on international routes by at least 15-25% per month, till they reach pre-Covid capacity.”
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