Why your festive season flights will cost more this year
domestic passenger traffic in June at around 13.28 million, more than 6% from a year earlier, and nearly 10% above pre-covid levels; however, airline capacity deployment in June was up by just 7% on year and lower by 3% over May. Separately, one of the terminals of Delhi's international airport, the country’s largest and busiest, remains out of service.
A section of the roof at its Terminal 1 collapsed on 28 June after heavy rain. The terminal is India's largest with a capacity of 40 million passengers per annum, and while airlines have managed to utilize Terminal 2 and 3 for the affected flights, a slight impact is visible on fares for some routes, an airline executive said on condition of anonymity.
Data from online travel platform Cleartrip shows advance air fares for major tourist routes are up by an average of 6.2% for the September quarter. The increase is around 18% for the October-November period, with a 20% increase in bookings as well.
Traditionally, the December quarter is the strongest for travel due to the onset of festivals and holiday season. Thomas Cook data showed that in the international category, new short-haul destinations with direct flights such as Almaty and Baku are seeing an increase of 20-33% in fares on flights from Delhi and Mumbai across the July-September period, while the usual foreign favourites such as Bangkok, Hong Kong, Singapore have actually seen a decline of 4-7% in air fares.
“Being an election year, this has also contributed to an extended holiday period lasting till mid-August, and we continue to see strong demand for the next two months across Tier 1 & Tier 2 cities for our holiday business across domestic and international destinations," Rastogi of Thomas Cook added. The next
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