If you have not booked airline tickets for the upcoming peak holiday season around Christmas and New Year, it would be a good time to do it now. Airfares on the popular holiday routes haven’t seen the usual surge till now.

Popular domestic leisure destinations like Andaman and Nicobar, Goa, Kerala and Rajasthan are not witnessing any price upswing for the final week of December. This is for the second consecutive year where prices of air tickets are benign. Reduction in aviation turbine fuel costs and increased capacity are the key reasons for the sluggish price trend, say experts.

At Rs 3,600, a direct flight to Goa (Dabolim) from Mumbai and Rs 7,600 from Delhi, is the typical fare for the route, according to Google Flights, which collates data for travel sites. The added holiday demand usually pushes the fare up by at least 25-30%, according to tour operators.

Delhi to Leh flights are priced at Rs 2,300, which is Rs 500-700 cheaper than the usual rate for the final week of December.

Tickets on non-stop flights to Port Blair from Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Mumbai are either lower than usual or are typically priced. A Mumbai to Kochi direct flight ticket for December 29 is being sold at Rs 5,200 against Rs 8,000-11,000 sold for the same date.

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The pricing trend isn’t strong in the upcoming Diwali period as well. Average prices of air tickets have fallen 20-25% this season compared to prices a year ago, according to booking website Ixigo.

“There has been a 0.16% y-o-y overall spike booking from Mumbai. The airfares for Diwali bookings from Mumbai have seen a 0.7% decrease this Diwali season,” Cleartrip added.

Travel operators also pointed out that the vacuum created by the exit of Go First is now fully accounted for by the increase in capacity by the other players. “Compared to 2023, the winter schedule of 2024 has a more than 5% increase in the number of flights. Aviation turbine fuel is cheaper than earlier. These two reasons are the primary ones behind the soft pricing trend of air tickets,” said a Mumbai-based travel operator.

Prices of ATF were cut by the oil marketing companies at the start of October. In the last 3-4 months, ATF has seen a reduction of 9% in Delhi to Rs 87,597 per kilolitre recorded on October 1 compared to Rs 96,148 on July 1. Since December 2023, there has been an 18% reduction in ATF.