Airlines launches fare war yet again

Mumbai: In yet another bonanza to air travellers at the onset of the summer season, budget carrier SpiceJet on Monday reduced its fares by up to a whopping 75 percent under a special offer. This is the third time in the last one month that the Kalanithi Maran promoted carrier has slashed fares to avail early summer bookings. The bookings under the ‘Super Summer Sale’ offer will remain open till Wednesday mid-night, Spicejet said in a release here on Monday. “Super Summer Sale offers up to 75 per cent off base fare plus fuel surcharge relative to last minute fares, for travel between April 1 and June 30, 2014,” the airline said. This offer comes after the overwhelming success of the earlier two similar schemes and aims at making those seats available to passengers at highly discounted advance purchase rates which would otherwise go empty, the release said.
“We received overwhelming positive feedback from customers who booked the earlier ‘Super Sales’ for taking the lead in making air travel more affordable, where travellers can now book more spontaneously and more often by air, and also for attracting many first time travellers,” SpiceJet chief operating officer Sanjiv Kapoor said. These advance purchase offers are a win-win for customers, for airlines, and for the travel industry, he said.
Following suit, GoAir announced up to 70 per cent reduction in fares for booking in the next three days, starting Monday, while IndiGo came out with discounted tickets on select sectors. “SpiceJet and IndiGo are providing discounts on their summer fares to stimulate the market and leverage advance bookings for the upcoming holiday season. SpiceJet has launched a three-day sale with discounts ranging from 35 per cent to 75 per cent on current fares across sectors between the 1st of April and the 30th of June. The bookings have more than doubled post the announcement,” travel portal Yatra.com president Sharat Dhall said.  SpiceJet, facing fund crunch for quite some time now, posted a net loss of Rupees 172 crore in the December quarter.