The US-Iran conflict and the tussle over the Strait of Hormuz have made domestic flying more expensive than ever. While the government and oil companies have implemented caps, freezes, and a ₹10,000 crore aviation turbine fuel or ATF Price Stabilization Fund to shield scheduled Indian airlines and passengers from extreme global jet fuel volatility, it has forced many brands to tweak their growth plans.
For one, Flipkart-owned Cleartrip says it is looking to rejig its revenue mix to fuel the next phase of growth. The brand hopes to increase the share of non-air verticals to 40-45% by next year from about 10% in 2025. “Air ticketing has become a highly volatile business to be in at the moment, driven by broader macroeconomic pressures,” says Saurav Kumar Chachan, associate partner, Redseer Strategy Consultants.
“Air fares have risen 20-22% over the past year, and prices remain sensitive to swings in crude and jet fuel costs, which make up a large share of airline operating expenses. This volatility is likely a key reason Cleartrip is looking to reduce its dependence on air ticket sales.”
So where does it see the biggest opportunity? “We feel there is still scope to grow in non-air verticals especially the bus booking space where online adoption is the least in India. And looking the growth of our peers in these spaces also gives us the confidence that we can also achieve scale,” says Manjari Singhal, chief growth & business officer, Cleartrip.
There is more to this pivot for the Bengaluru-based brand. It is also aiming to break even by early 2027. According to Chachan, the gross take rate (a fee or commission for facilitating a transaction) in air ticketing stands at about 7-8% while net take rate post discounts stands at 4-5%, lower than in other travel-related verticals. The take rate in bus bookings, for instance, varies between 10% and 12% while the take rate is the highest in hotel bookings, which can be around 18-20%.
“Air ticketing, despite the high transaction value, is low-margin and competitive, vulnerable to constraints such as fare volatility and operational disruptions,” explains Premchand Chandrasekharan, partner, Avalon Consulting. “Expanding into hotels, buses, trains, holiday packages, and travel ancillaries can help improve margins, reduce risk, and increase customer expenditure share,” he adds.
This is not the first time Cleartrip is looking to step out of its comfort zone. Right at the beginning — it was founded in 2006 — it used to offer both air and hotel bookings and in 2013, the platform started to offer bus and train tickets in association with other platforms. But these services remained a non-starter and Cleartip quietly phased them out.
It was only after it was aquired by Flipkart in 2021 that Cleartip decided to bring back some of these services for users. In April this year, the brand joined hands with Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) to offer rail bookings and earlier this week Cleartrip launched Bus 2.0 expanding its road travel offering to cover more than 650,000 routes across 6,000-plus cities, including some destinations not served by air or rail networks.
The only problem is, every other OTA including market leader MakeMyTrip is already present in these verticals and that too for a sizeable amount of time.
Is Cleartrip too late to join the party?
Space for more
Cleartrip admits it is late. “We took a little bit of time to scale our non-air verticals because first we wanted to strengthen our core offerings and also scale our hotels booking business,” says Singhal. “In fact, our inventory for the hotels verticals is the second largest in the space with a size of 60,000 to 70,000 in size.”
Experts say there is still room to expand the online travel market, estimated at $31.3 billion in FY26, as per VIDEC. Though the overall ticketing market is dominated by offline players — that have about 55% share — the penetration of online ticketing has been steadily gaining speed.
In hotels, the online penetration is estimated at around 33% and in bus bookings it stands at around 30%. “Non-air categories were fragmented and less digitised earlier, requiring extensive supplier onboarding,” says Avalon’s Chandrasekharan. “However, digital adoption has expanded, suppliers are more integrated, and online payments are common. Travel platforms now have robust data and infrastructure, making cross-selling feasible.”
Being part of the Flipkart ecosystem, Cleartrip has easy access to the e-commerce giant’s userbase of more than 300 million. “The brand has been running various loyalty and reward programmes to attract the core users of Flipkart to its platform,” points out Satish Meena, founder, Datum Intelligence.
The journey ahead isn’t going to be easy though, given the intense competition. MakeMyTrip controls about 60% of the overall OTA segment and also rules the online bus and hotel booking space, with ixigo marching ahead with a strong foothold in the train booking space.
Much will depend on how frictionless are Cleartrip’s new offerings. Deploying smarter discovery and UI features to simplify customer choices will be imperative to woo new customers.