If you are planning a holiday during the summer break in May-June, the time to book your air tickets is now because fares on most routes will come cheaper than what it was last year during the same period. Owing to capacity expansion by most carriers in the last few years, fares on four of the six busiest route in the country — Delhi-Bengaluru, Delhi-Kolkata, Delhi-Hyderabad and Delhi-Chennai — are down in the range of 1-17% if one books around the last week of February for travel sometime during May or June. The remaining two busy routes — Delhi-Mumbai and Mumbai-Bengaluru — though, have not seen a drop but the hike is not substantial, in the range of 1-3% over what it during the same period last year. These six routes comprise 70-75% of total passengers flown in a month.
According to data made available by online ticket and travel booking platform Yatra.com, the average round trip fare between between Delhi and Bengaluru is down 1% to Rs 6,277 while a Delhi-Chennai round trip is lower by over 8% to Rs 6,621 on a year-on-year basis. The round trip fare for Delhi-Hyderabad is approximately 13% lower than what it was during this period last year. The Delhi-Kolkata sector has witnessed a fall of around 17% in ticket prices for the summer break. “The fares have marginally decreased due to the capacity expansion on the popular routes,” said Sharat Dhall, COO (B2C) of Yatra.com. “There is a lot of capacity in the market. And because of that there is a lot of competition amongst the airlines. If you book in advance you tend to get a good deal,” said Balu Ramachandran, head of air and distribution, Cleartrip.
“However, the prices will start increasing as you move closer to the summer holiday season, something which is the norm in ticket pricing these days,” he added. The Delhi-Mumbai and Mumbai-Bengaluru routes have, however, seen an increase of nearly 1% and 3%, respectively, compared with the summer of 2017. “Airports facing capacity constraints will see higher tariffs and that is what is playing out in Mumbai. You will have to pay more if you are travelling closer to Mumbai,” Ramachandran said. Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport has reached 94% capacity of 45 million passenger a year, and the new airport in Navi Mumbai is expected to start operations only by 2019 end.
Since jet fuel prices, which comprise around 40% of the total operating costs of airlines, is at this time of the year on average 12% higher than what it was last year in the same period, this is surely early bird discount season as fares will increase as one comes closer to the holiday season.“For the last couple of years, we have seen fares not really going up in a big way. People are yet to firm up travel plans for the summer season. We will see fares rising after school examinations are over,” said Jyoti Mayal of Airlines Council.