Air fares up by 300% due to festivals
Manoj Paikray, a manager with a corporate company in Hyderabad, was planning to pay a surprise visit.
Hyderabad: Manoj Paikray, a manager with a corporate company in Hyderabad, was planning to pay a surprise visit to his family in Visakhapatnam. But as it turned out, the surprise was on him.
His train ticket remains on the wait list and thanks to the festival rush, the cost of air tickets has gone through the roof. While air tickets to popular destinations like Delhi and Mumbai from the city has seen a rise by 15-20 per cent for spot bookings, the fares for intrastate destinations including Visakhapatnam, Tirupati and inter-state destinations like Trivandrum and Kochi has seen an unprecedented rise of 250-300 per cent.
“Festival rush is an annual affair, but this time there was a lot of advance booking,” said Imtiaz Qureshi, managing director, Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI), Andhra Pradesh chapter.
Due to several trade fairs being hosted in Mumbai and Delhi, the rush to these destination is high this time, he added.
A one-way Hyderabad-Delhi air ticket, which usually costs Rs 7,000-8,000, has gone up to Rs 10,000-10,500. Fares to Mumbai has spiked to Rs 7,000-8,000 from Rs 4,000-5,000.
“Meanwhile, the fares to destinations in Andhra Pradesh and Kerala has gone up by 250-300 per cent due to the Sankranti and Ayyappa pilgrimage rush,” said Praveen, reservation official of Andhra Pradesh State Tourism Development Corporation.
Air fares from Hyderabad to Visakhapatnam and Tirupati are at Rs 16,000-17,000, from the normal Rs 4,000-7,000. Tickets to Kochi and Trivandrum, are priced at Rs 10,000-11,000 from the normal Rs 7,000-8,000.
“The flights to Tirupati and Visakhapatnam are packed. For Visakhapatnam, there are only three operators, Air India, Spicejet and Jet Airways,” added the AP Tourism Development Corporation official. TAAI officials say that these soaring fares will not normalise until the first week of February.