NEW DELHI: Union Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu on Friday ordered airlines to maintain reasonable air fares across different sectors during the upcoming festival season. Passengers have been asked to register complaints on high airfares on AirSewa, the Aviation Ministry's passenger grievance redressal portal.
As per a PIB release, he also directed the Tariff Monitoring Unit of the aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to maintain strict vigilance on airfares and ensure the compliance of airlines with the tariff range declared by airlines.
Naidu was holding his monthly review meeting with domestic airlines. The DGCA had also recently held a meeting with airlines and cautioned them against any fare increase.
“Airlines assured that passenger convenience will remain their top priority and informed that additional flight capacities have been deployed on high-traffic routes to meet festive demand,” the release added.
The review meeting was held to assess the operational and technical performance, with a special focus on safety and passenger facilitation.
Air India, Air India Express, IndiGo, Akasa Air, Alliance Air, Fly91, FlyBig and IndiaOne Air participated and presented their performance metrics including action taken reports on security incidents and passenger grievances. Comprehensive discussions were held on safety oversight, fleet management and passenger-centric initiatives. Aviation Secretary Samir Kumar Sinha and DGCA Director General Faiz Ahmed Kidwai also took part.
Naidu emphasised strict adherence to safety protocols and urged the airlines to adopt best practices in passenger convenience and service quality. Detailed discussions were held with each airline on identifying bottlenecks in their operations and addressing their challenges, the release said.
“The Minister also reviewed the grievance redressal done by the airlines and directed them to qualitatively close passenger grievances in a timely manner,” the release added.