The Govt. of India on Friday increased the lower fare band for domestic flight tickets by 5%, this move will most probably affect the prices of domestic flight in India.
However, the The upper limit on airfares will remain the same as of now.
Civil Aviation Minister, Hardeep Singh Puri on Friday in a tweer share this information and said, “There has been a continuous rise in price of ATF (aviation turbine fuel) so it has been decided to increase the lower fare band by 5% keeping the upper fare band unchanged.”
There has been a continuous rise in price of ATF so it has been decided to increase the lower fare band by 5% keeping the upper fare band unchanged. We may open the sector for 100% operations when daily passenger traffic crosses 3.5 lakhs on 3 occasions in a month.
— Hardeep Singh Puri (@HardeepSPuri) March 19, 2021Advertisement
“We may open the sector for 100% operations when daily passenger traffic crosses 3.5 lakhs on 3 occasions in a month,” Puri said in the same tweet.
Just a month back, the Centre had increased the lower and upper limits on domestic airfares by 10-30 percent due to rising ATF prices.
In May 2020, when the govt of India resumes the scheduled domestic flights, the Aviation Ministry had placed limits on airfares through seven bands classified based on flight duration.
The first band consists of flights having less than a 40-minute duration and its lower limit has been increased to ₹2,310 on Friday. The lower limit for the highest band of flights having a duration of 180-210 minutes was further hiked to ₹7,560.
Currently, the airlines are permitted to operate not more than 80 percent of their per-COVID domestic flights.
The government had decided to impose lower and upper limits on airfares while resuming domestic services in May last year to ensure that the financially-hit airlines can survive as well as passengers are not charged exorbitantly.
Scheduled international passenger traffic continues to remain suspended in India since March 23, 2020, due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, special international flights have been operating since July 2020 under air bubble arrangements formed with various countries.
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