Indian airliners and flight carriers are pushing out tickets cheap to Indian travelers making holiday trips during the festival holidays of Navratri and Dussehra. Generally, airliners have always pushed up rates at this time of the year, to take advantage of the peak traffic that is seen at this time. This year however, Indian aircraft industry’s woes continue, with travelers shirking high cost travel.
“It is true that airlines are taking longer this year to hike fares, though that will happen in a few weeks. To that extent, demand is definitely lower.” according toRajji Rai, the chairman of Swift Group, a travel company. Average bimonthly fares for travel sectors from Delhi to Bombay and Bombay to Bengaluru are down by a fifth when compared to last year’s rates. A similar troubling scenario is being seen in the international arena with a drop of a tenth for the high-volume usually profitable routes of Delhi to Dubai and Bombay to Singapore. This news was conveyed by the head of the onlin travel booking website Cleartrip.
According to industry insiders the trouble is a large supply with little demand. For example, airlines have only managed to fill 40% of their capacity from festival pre-booking offers. Except for a few airliners which are taking steps to address this issue, most are still adding seats and carrying capacity.
The competition between airliners is also driving down prices. “SpiceJet still has offers into September, which IndiGo and Go Air follow, and so we have to emulate as well. Both SpiceJet and IndiGo have announced fares throughout the year. The ones they are announcing now encompass entire 2015. The customer has many more options.” said an executive of the aircraft company Jet Airways.
Airlines are however using this information to study passenger travel patterns and have noted that south Indian destinations Mysore and Pondicherry are popular for their Dussehra festivals, which also include Mahalaya Amavasya or Pitru Paksha celebrations in honor of ancestors.