Domestic flight tickets to cost you 12.5% more from today

New Delhi: Air travel within the country will cost you more from today (Friday, August 13) as the aviation ministry on Thursday night increased minimum and maximum domestic airfares chargeable by airlines by 12.5%. The Centre also allowed airlines to operate 7.5% more domestic flights, raising the capacity to 72.5% of pre-Covid level.

Worth mentioning here is that airlines have been operating at 65% of their pre-Covid domestic flights capacity since July 5. Between June 1 and July 5, airlines were allowed to operate at 50% of the pre-Covid capacity. 

With the latest hike, one-way minimum fare on the Delhi-Mumbai route will rise from Rs 4,700 to Rs 5,287 and the maximum, from Rs 13,000 to Rs 14,625 excluding taxes.  The government has hiked domestic airfares for the fourth time this year including the latest one amid rising jet fuel prices,



which account for nearly 40% of the operating cost of airlines. Also, due to the Covid situation, airlines are struggling to survive in the absence of any financial support from the government.

It may be noted that the above fare range does not include passenger security fees of Rs 150 applicable for domestic travel and GST.

On May 25, 2020, when the government allowed airlines to operate scheduled domestic flights after a two-month-long break, it had asked airlines to start with one-third of pre-Covid capacity and also fixed fare bands to ensure passengers are not forced to pay exorbitant price and strong airlines do not resort to predatory fares to hasten the bankruptcy of weaker ones. fare ranges were fixed based on flying time. At that time seven categories--starting at flights below 40 minutes and going up to 3-3.5 hours-- were made to fix airfare range.