NEW DELHI: Ever since Jet Airways suspended its flights, its competitors seem to have cashed in on the opportunity to hike fares, thereby adding to consumers’ woes. The current trend, experts say, is likely to see Jet operating a bare minimum fleet, thus continuing to bump up airfares in future.
On Monday, for instance, flights from Mumbai to New Delhi were selling for as much as Rs 32,000 for a single trip, with the minimum one-way price clocking at around Rs 9,000 for any flight on the route over the next seven days. Prices were almost the same from New Delhi to Mumbai. “The days of cheap fares are over and will remain so till other airlines manage to ramp up their fleet or Jet manages to get more aircraft in the air,” said Debasish Chatterjee, co-founder of Delhi-based Business Travels.
“I booked a group in May on Delhi-Bengaluru and the fares remained stubbornly above Rs 6,500 one way, per person.” Flights from Kochi to New Delhi were as high as Rs 12,000, hovering at around Rs 8,000 for a week’s time.
According to Kinjal Shah, vice president, corporate ratings, ICRA, frequent flight cancellations have resulted in a 30-40 per cent increase in airfares between September 2018 and March 2019. The grounding of aircraft due to liquidity issues with Jet Airways and a regulatory directive which grounded Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft have resulted in a 15 per cent impact on the industry capacity, Shah said.
The increased airfares are likely to boost airlines’ profitability but hit passenger growth.
98 aircraft grounded
Around 98 of the 670 aircraft in the industry have been grounded. About 86 aircraft of Jet Airways were grounded due to non-payment of lease rentals, while 12 aircraft of SpiceJet were grounded as required by
the Boeing grounding order.