Airlines cancel some flights despite demand.
Visakhapatnam: With consecutive holidays from Saturday to Tuesday, some airlines operating out of Vizag have hiked the fares by 300 per cent. The one-way airfare from Vizag to Hyderabad and Tirupati during the next 3-4 days is more than the one-way fare to Colombo, Singapore and Bangkok. While the one-way fares to these international destinations are around Rs 7,000, the fare from the city to Hyderabad and Tirupati is Rs 10,000-Rs 25,000.
Similarly, the charge from Vizag to New Delhi ranges from Rs 10,000-Rs 24,000. On an average day, air tickets to Hyderabad and Tirupati are priced around Rs 5,000. But at present, the surge in price range is in from Rs 10,000-Rs 30,000 till August 16. On Saturday, both Indigo Airlines and Spicejet charged around Rs 16,000 from Vizag to Hyderabad. “With holidays as an excuse, the airlines have created an artificial demand by withdrawing flights on some routes despite the demand. They are fleecing the travellers,” said chairman O. Naresh Kumar of Tours and Travels Association of India.
Usually, the upper middle class and the upper class people rely on air transport, as most of the train reservations are made well in advance. “Employees don’t have much time for long-distance train journeys. But the airfares have become unaffordable in the coming week,” said an IT professional, K. Siva Kumar. Coming down heavily on the airlines, Mr Naresh Kumar has written a letter to Union Minister for Civil Aviation P. Ashok Gajapathi Raju.
“At a time when the government is looking at promoting air travel by lowering the fares, the hike in price is not in tune with the government’s decision,” he mentioned in the letter. In the last week of May, most of the airlines have tripled the airfare from Vijayawada to Vizag due to the Telugu Desam’s ‘Mahanadu’ held in Vizag city. “It seems that airlines may double the airfare for upcoming Ganesh Chaturthi,” said a private firm employee G. Ganesh.
