Two-thirds of travelers are concerned about rising flight rates and want pricing caps to be reinstated, according to a study. - Global Continent

Two-thirds of travelers are concerned about rising flight rates and want pricing caps to be reinstated, according to a study.

 Travelers are concerned about rising airfares because, according to a recent LocalCircles study, two out of every three passengers want the government to reinstate the upper and lower airfare limits that were in place during most of the epidemic.

Consumers in 297 districts responded to the survey with over 22,000 responses. The respondents were from Tier-1 in 47% of cases, Tier-2 in 34%, and Tier-3, Tier-4, and rural regions in 19% of cases.

In answer to the survey’s question about whether the government should reinstate fare ceilings, 12,193 responses were collected, with 65% of airline passengers supporting the idea and 21% opposing it.

India restarted domestic flights in May 2020 after a two-month suspension of regularly scheduled commercial passenger flights, but only after imposing seven sets of floor and ceiling limits for seven categories of route lengths that encompass the entire domestic network. With effect from August 31 after more than two years, the government eliminated the fare limitations and let supply and demand in the market set the prices.

Travelers who had to pay eye-watering costs during the previous months as airlines passed along rising fuel prices to customers had some respite in September when the termination of pricing limitations caused a 30% decrease in airfares across routes. Although prices may not soar as they did in September, one aviation analyst predicted that they will be higher in the current quarter because of the anticipated increase in demand through December.

In the current quarter compared to September, airfares have risen by almost 6%, according to online travel agency Cleartrip. The Bengaluru-Kolkata route, the New Delhi-Goa route, and the New Delhi-Bengaluru route all saw price increases between December 21 and December 31, according to rival Ixigo.

The poll participants from LocalCircles also expressed dissatisfaction with low-cost carriers’ higher prices when compared to full-service airlines. Nearly 10,000 replies were received to the poll question asking respondents about such situations, and overall 79% of respondents stated that they occasionally saw higher charges for a no-frills service in the previous 12 months. Over the past 12 months, over 50% of respondents reported finding low-cost airline prices to be more expensive than full-service airlines “very often,” 22% reported doing so “often,” and 7% reported doing so “once in a while.”

According to travel agents, the removal of fare caps has only positively impacted a small number of industries; in contrast, the majority of industries continue to offer high fares despite rising demand for travel following months of pandemic-related travel restrictions, the survey added.

According to the survey, among other routes, fares on Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Hyderabad have increased by more than 20%, in part because of an increase in the cost of jet fuel and in part because airlines are trying to make up for their losses by taking advantage of increased demand.