Air India’s Chennai-Delhi One-Way Fares Skyrocketed To Rs 29,000 While Jet Airways Pilots Continued To Report ‘Sick’
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Sept 11:
Chennai: As Jet Airways pilots kept away from work for the third consecutive day on Thursday, ticket prices on other airlines soared, with domestic one-way fares touching an alltime high of nearly Rs 20,000, on average, in Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai sectors. Jet Airways cancelled 22 domestic flights and four international flights connecting Chennai airport.
While the airfare touched
Rs 29,000 for Chennai-Delhi, it was Rs 16,978 for a ticket to Mumbai and Rs 13,000 to Hyderabad. The windfall can’t be more obvious when the Chennai-Delhi fare is compared to the ‘fly Singapore offer’ of Singapore Airlines, which is priced around Rs 15,000.
“Seats are not available for the lastminute traveller. Fares are shooting up everyday because of disruption of Jet Airways schedules. Fares are higher on the most popular routes such as Chennai-Delhi, Chennai-Hyderabad and Chennai-Mumbai. Prices are high for tickets to Kolkata because only two airlines are flying there right now,” said a senior official of the Airports Authority of India (AAI).
Most of the 39 Jet Airways pilots based in Chennai did not report for duty. They have
decided to keep away till the stalemate with management is resolved. “A couple of first officers on probation and three captains reported for duty. The ATR flights are operated using expat pilots while bigger aircraft are operated by bringing cockpit crew from Mumbai,” said a pilot. Jet Airways issued refunds for cancelled flights and transferred passengers to other airlines — Kingfisher Airlines and SpiceJet — following an understanding to transport stranded passengers. The Jet Airways imbroglio has resulted in a boom time for the other airlines. All of them operated flights with 100% occupancy, something never experienced in the recent past.
Several passengers were struggling to get flight tickets on Day 3. “I need to travel to Mumbai urgently to attend to an emergency, along with my five relatives. But there are no tickets in any of the flights,” said Yashwant, who has been hopping from one airline counter to another at Chennai airport. He added: “We are wondering whether we should try trains; we need to reach there fast. Air India has a few seats in tomorrow’s first flight to Delhi. But there is no guarantee there will be tickets from Delhi to Mumbai.”
Air India’s other services to Delhi are packed for Friday. The few seats that are available in the first flight are priced at Rs 6,700, almost double the normal fare. Kingfisher operated additional flights to most destinations because demand was high. Before the Jet Airways pil o t s struck work, the load factor on a domestic flight was about 60%; fares were also cheaper. A Chennai-Delhi ticket cost only Rs 3,000. “Sometimes, people would even walk in, buy a ticket and get on board a flight. The scene has changed drastically in the past three days,” said an AAI official.
No comments:
Post a Comment