BENGALURU: The User Development Fee at Kempegowda International Airport, which has been hugely cut with effect from September 16, will not impact airfares in any way, according to both Bangalore International Airport Limited and Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India. However, disagreeing with the official version, urban transportation expert Sanjeev Dyamannavar, who was a strong campaigner on the need to reduce the UDF, says different airlines will be forced to pass on the benefits to the consumers.
“It all depends on the airlines individually. The parking charges, landing charges and housing charges too have been reduced apart from the UDF,” he said. “Airlines already offering highly discounted ticket fares of Rs 999 will not reduce it further but those pricing tickets in the range of Rs 2,500 to Rs 3,500 will definitely end up doing so. Everyone is trying to offer discounted fares. When their operating costs go down, the airliner will try to burden the consumer less,” he said. The UDF benefit definitely needs to be passed on the passenger, he stressed. “The international UDF has gone down by Rs 800-plus. I am sure an airlines offering a ticket to Sri Lanka for Rs 14,000 will end up reducing it to Rs 13,000.”
However, a highly placed source in a prominent international and domestic airliner told The New Indian Express that it was very unlikely that any airline will end up passing on the benefits to passengers. “The cost of Aviation Turbine Fuel has gone up by 150% in the last two years. The price of fuel is incredibly high and tickets are priced at the lowest now,” he pointed out. “It does not make any logical sense for my airline or any other airline to reduce the fares further. From New Delhi to Mumbai, one can fly for `3,000 now. It used to be `5,500 and even `8,000 at one time,” he explained.
Major airlines have reported heavy losses on their balance sheets. “ There is no way that they can pay salaries and run the show if the fares are reduced further. May be just to capture a bit of market share, some airline might try, but most of them will not do it as everyone is struggling financially,” the source said. Asked about the huge UDF reduction, he stressed that the “prices in an airline ticket are all built-in. No airline will come out and say this much of user fee is reduced and we will effect a subsequent reduction in your ticket from tomorrow.”
Goof up
In a major goof-up earlier in the day, the UDF for different financial years were mixed up when it was first uploaded on the AERA website. It was taken down after some time from the portal, creating confusion as to whether they were the correct rates or not. AERA said it will upload the correct rates later. AERA Chairman S Machendranath said, “It was caused due to typing errors. We will issue a corrigendum shortly.” He also explained that rates were supposed to gradually go up every financial year but had been mistakenly typed as going down with each passing year.