New Delhi: As the country is all set to celebrate the festival of colors, sweets and happiness as Holi would be celebrated on March 25, air travelers should brace up their belt to expect the skyrocketing prices in the airfare.
With just a few days left for the festival of Holi, students, employees and others are busy booking their tickets to their hometowns, only to find out that the high fares charged by the airlines.
According to data from travel website Ixigo, against a regular airfare of Rs 4,770 from Delhi-Patna route, the fares are as high as Rs 22,513 on March 23 and a similar trend is observed between 20-25 March, credits to Holi and the market trend that the aviation industry follows whenever there's a festive season.
Between Mumbai to Lucknow, the airlines are charging as high as Rs 12,569 on March 23 against a normal of Rs 5,210 amounting to a hike of over 100%. Similarly, against a regular airfare of Rs 4,430 from Delhi to Ayodhya, the airlines are charging as high as Rs 11,830 amounting to a hike of over 250%.
Similar trend is observed in other routes between Delhi-Srinagar, Delhi-Jammu and in other places including to metropolitan cities and in others. It is pertinent to note here that nearly 200 aircrafts of the fleet size close to 790 aircraft of Indian carriers are expected to be grounded by the end of March due to ongoing supply chain issue, aviation consultancy firm Capa India had said in November 2023.
More than 150 aircrafts were grounded last year in November. While, India's largest domestic carrier Indigo had announced earlier this month that it had grounded about 75 aircrafts due to snags in the Pratt & Whitney engines.
As on December 31, the airline had 358 planes in its fleet amounting to near about half the size of the Indian fleet size.
Read More
