With IndiGo cancelling over 1,000 flights on Friday owing to crew shortage as the second phase of the pilots flight duty and rest period norms kicked in, huge capacity was out of the market, leading to airfares tripling and quadrupling from over the normal range, a travel industry executive said.
DGCA provided temporary relief to IndiGo, which is partially owned by Rahul Bhatia, by rolling back the night duty definition to 12 am-5 am from 12 am-6 am earlier, and allowing its pilots to do six night-landings from two earlier, besides other relaxations.
Taking a serious note of the situation, the civil aviation ministry said it has invoked regulatory powers to ensure fair and reasonable fares across all affected routes.
'IndiGo abruptly cancelled our Kolkata-Purnea flight citing bad weather, despite clear conditions and another airline operating the same route, causing severe inconvenience.'
Domestic carrier IndiGo on Saturday said it is facing a temporary system slowdown across its network, affecting its website and bookings.
With only a few days to go before the country celebrates Holi, several airline companies offered discounts on fares on the occasion of the festival of colours. While two airlines are providing discounts on both domestic and international networks, another has the offer only for the domestic sector. Low-cost airline Akasa Air said it is offering an all-inclusive one-way fare starting at Rs 1,499 on domestic routes.
More than 300 flights have been cancelled and at least 25 airports, including Srinagar, have been temporarily shut for operations amid restrictions in the wake of the armed forces launching missile attacks on terror targets in Pakistan on Wednesday morning.
Long-term macro trends indicate growth in demand for air travel. Trends from the ticketing website MakeMyTrip indicate a likely annual growth of between 11-17 per cent in Indian air travel demand over FY24-30. Through that period, InterGlobe Aviation or IndiGo may continue to make gains in market share in both domestic and international travel, aided by large fleet additions. IndiGo is the largest global customer of Airbus by far with 950 aircraft orders outstanding.
Airfares have nearly doubled in a matter of days on routes hit by the cancellation of 200 weekly flights linking Mumbai airport to 12 cities. The fares have soared as high as 193 per cent following a recent government order to cancel flights to ease "persistent congestion" that was causing delays. Aside from the reduction in flights on 12 routes, two destinations - Hubli and Jabalpur - have lost connectivity with Mumbai since last week, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium's data reviewed
The carrier said for domestic flights the fees for cancellation and changes would now be Rs 3,500 and Rs 3,000 respectively, if it was done within three days of the flight's departure. Before this announcement, IndiGo charged a flat rate of Rs 3,000 and Rs 2,500 for cancellation and detail changes on domestic tickets.
While global majors like JetBlue, RyanAir, Southwest sell almost 90 per cent of their tickets through their own websites or apps, airlines in India have a minuscule share of around 25 per cent through direct channel booking.
Air India offers huge discount on tickets.
The fare war triggered by the entry of AirAsia into the domestic market continues as the budget carrier IndiGo has launched another round of promotional fares, starting at Rs 1,724 (all inclusive) for a limited period.
Air India launched a short term 'SpringSale' of up to 50 per cent on all domestic sectors of its network, which is up for sale till Friday and valid for travel between February 21 and April 15.
Once again, there seems to be an airfare war in India.
No-frills airline SpiceJet on Wednesday launched yet another round of limited-period low fare offers to fill its seats for travel between July and September when air travel generally slumps.
With cash shortage and plans going awry, the AirAsia owner is looking to cash out of the venture he built with Ratan Tata in 2013.
A Mumbai-Delhi air ticket is now available upwards of Rs 3,700 for next day travel on all airlines.
Most airlines have fattened their profits, turned the corner, or cut their losses, except AirAsia India.
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