Airfares have been put under the scanner after the Directorate General of Civil Aviation was bombarded with complaints of carriers charging outrageous fares during festivals and emergency situations. The regulator has asked airlines to specify the number of seats sold in the highest fare buckets.
They have also been asked to file monthly reports with the DGCA on the share of revenue generated from tickets sold in the highest fare bucket. “To begin with, we have identified 20 domestic routes for which airlines will have to tell us on a monthly basis two things - number of seats sold in highest fare bucket and its percentage to their total revenue. If we find that a large number of seats are being sold at highest fare level, we will decide our next course of action. Else, no action will be required from our side,” said a senior DGCA official. The routes identified are the busy sectors such as Delhi-Mumbai, and other metros such as Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Bengaluru, as well as North East, Port Blair, Srinagar and Leh.
Parliament members and passenger organisations have been constantly complaining that airlines charge high fares during crunch situations. The issue was raised again last week when Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju promised that he would speak to the airlines to avoid “surge pricing”. “The ministry will commence the process of consultations with stakeholders, including airlines, to explore possibilities... of containing fares.”
The aviation ministry, based on a DGCA study of fares in the past few years, has maintained that airlines are not overcharging. “We will make public the information given by airlines to us about the number of seats being sold for highest fare bucket. This information will be shared with the public on a monthly basis,” the official said.
