Air travel will cost more in new financial year: DGCA

Passengers will have to shell out more money for air travel from now as the Civil Aviation Ministry increased the lower and upper limits on domestic airfares by 10 to 30%. These new limits would remain “in force up to March 31, 2021, or until further orders”, the ministry said its order. While announcing the resumption of scheduled domestic flights on May 21 last year, the ministry had placed

limits on airfares through seven bands classified on the basis of flight duration. The first such band consists of flights that are of less than 40 minutes duration. The lower limit for the first band was increased on Thursday from Rs 2,000 to Rs 2,200. The upper limit in this band was set at Rs 7,800, which was Rs 6,000 earlier.
The subsequent bands are for flights with durations of 40-60 minutes, 60-90 minutes, 90-120 minutes, 120-150 minutes, 150-180 minutes and 180-210 minutes. The fresh lower and upper limits set by the ministry for these bands on Thursday were: Rs 2,800 – Rs 9,800; Rs 3,300 – Rs 11,700; Rs 3,900 – Rs 13,000; Rs 5,000 – Rs 16,900; Rs 6,100 – Rs 20,400; Rs 7,200 – Rs 24,200, respectively.

Till date, the lower and upper limits for these bands were: Rs 2,500 – Rs 7,500; Rs 3,000 – Rs 9,000; Rs 3,500 – Rs 10,000; Rs 4,500 – Rs 13,000; Rs 5,500 – Rs 15,700 and Rs 6,500 – Rs 18,600, respectively.

Directorate General of Civil Aviation had said on May 21 last year that each airline would sell at least 40% of its tickets on a flight at prices less than the midpoint between the lower limit and upper limit. Domestic passenger services resumed on May 25 after nearly two months of suspension to combat the coronavirus outbreak.