IndiGo has raised charges for a range of ancillary services, including infant travel, excess baggage, unaccompanied minors, priority check-in and boarding, and travel certificates, increasing the cost of add-on services for passengers travelling on the airline.
The country’s largest airline has increased the infant travel fee by 50% to Rs 3,000 from Rs 2,000. The charge applies to infants below two years of age, who do not get a separate seat under the arrangement but are required to have a ticket.
The increase means families travelling with an infant will now pay Rs 1,000 more for the service than under the earlier fee structure. The revision could have a sizeable revenue impact given IndiGo’s large passenger base. The airline is estimated to carry around 10 lakh infant passengers, which would translate into roughly Rs 100 crore of additional gross revenue if the entire base were subject to the full Rs 1,000 increase.
IndiGo has also raised its excess baggage charge to Rs 800 per kg from Rs 700 per kg. This means a passenger carrying 5 kg above the permitted allowance would now pay Rs 4,000, compared with Rs 3,500 earlier.
The fee for unaccompanied minors has been increased to Rs 5,999 from Rs 5,000, while priority check-in and boarding charges have risen to Rs 650 from Rs 450. The latter represents a 44% increase in the fee for passengers opting for the priority service.
The airline has also raised its travel certificate fee to Rs 300 from Rs 200.
The latest revisions come as airlines increasingly use ancillary services to supplement revenue from base fares. Such charges include fees for baggage, seat selection, priority services and other optional products, allowing carriers to generate additional revenue from passengers beyond the headline ticket price.
For IndiGo, which operates one of the largest domestic networks in the country and carries millions of passengers every month, even relatively small changes in per-passenger ancillary fees can have a meaningful impact when applied across a large customer base.