NEW DELHI: India’s largest carrier IndiGo is coming up with a three-day summer sale, where it would offer 10 lakh seats at a starting price of Rs 999 for domestic flights and Rs 3,499 for international flights.
The tickets can be booked between May 14 and 16 this year for travels between May 29 and September 28, 2019. All of its 53 destinations in India and 17 destinations abroad are covered in the offer.
“With the onset of summer holidays, we are excited to announce this three-day special sale effective (from) today till May 16, 2019,” IndiGo chief commercial officer William Boulter said.
“To make the holiday season more special, IndiGo is offering attractive discounts up to 30 per cent on pre-paid excess baggage and pre-paid express check-in service,” he said.
The IndiGo summer sale, as well as offers given by other airlines, come as a welcome move for passengers, as it will help airfares get back to normal levels. Post-suspension of operations announced by Jet Airways, airfares in recent months, especially in busy routes such as Delhi-Mumbai, Delhi-Kolkata and Mumbai-Chennai have gone up by 30 per cent.
Last week, National carrier Air India had announced a 40 per cent discount on flight tickets bought three hours prior to flight departure, while SpiceJet, which has inducted a large number of planes earlier operated by Jet Airways, has started offering business class seats at much reasonable prices on a total of 22 routes.
Rating agency Care Ratings, in a report released on Tuesday, said that it expects fares across domestic routes to remain elevated at the current levels till July 2019. However, it expects international fares to moderate.
“The fares on the international routes may moderate over the next two months as the inventory levels would gradually recover with more domestic airlines planning to ramp up their international operations across route,” it said.
The higher fares are also expected to impact domestic passenger traffic growth during the year.
“Domestic passenger traffic growth would moderate to lower double-digits and higher single-digits (8-12%), as fare prices remain high. With Jet Airways’ entire fleet grounded post-April 17, 2019, it would take considerable time for domestic airlines to make up for the extinguished seat inventory,” the rating agency said.
The indigo offer