Air India and Air India Express on Saturday confirmed they have proactively capped economy class airfares on non-stop domestic flights since December 4, amid public complaints about high costs shown on third-party sites.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), an Air India Spokesperson said, "Air India & Air India Express clarify that, since 4 December, economy class airfares on non-stop domestic flights have been proactively capped to prevent the usual demand-and-supply mechanism being applied by revenue management systems." [sic]
"We are aware of screenshots of last-minute itineraries with one-stop or two-stop flights or a combination of economy and premium economy or business cabins taken from third-party platforms. It is not technically possible to cap all such permutations, but we are engaging such platforms to exercise oversight," the airline added.
The airline also committed to adding capacity to help travellers and their baggage reach their destinations as quickly as possible.
Airfares Skyrocket
Airfares reached levels never seen before with a one-way one-stop economy-class SpiceJet Kolkata-Mumbai flight ticket for December 6 costing up to Rs 90,000, and a similar ticket of Air India for Mumbai-Bhubaneswar going up to Rs 84,485, according to the airlines' websites.
A similar trend was noted on many other high-traffic routes.
With IndiGo cancelling over 1,000 flights on Friday owing to crew shortage as the second phase of the pilots flight duty and rest period norms kicked in, huge capacity was out of the market, leading to airfares tripling and quadrupling from the normal range.
IndiGo operates around 2,300 flights a day and has been cancelling flights in hundreds over the last four days as it struggled to secure adequate crew to operate its widespread and dense network.
Govt Introduces Airfare Caps
Following the rising complaints, the government on Saturday introduced airfare caps amid IndiGo flight disruptions that had pushed air ticket prices higher in many routes.
For five days in a row, IndiGo, the country's largest airline, has cancelled hundreds of flights, primarily due to crew woes.
With a lesser number of flights, airfares on certain routes have surged.
Taking a serious note of the situation, the civil aviation ministry said it has invoked regulatory powers to ensure fair and reasonable fares across all affected routes.
The limits will be in place till the situation stabilises, the ministry said in a statement.
- with inputs from PTI
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