Airlines fly high on winter rush, withdraw promotional fares

New Delhi: This year’s winter rush is turning into a windfall for the aviation industry. Thanks to soldout flights, airlines have withdrawn special promotional air fares for the winter. Most airlines have recorded such heavy booking on all sectors that they are completely soldout for the next one month.
The unprecedented booking rush has forced many airlines to start additional flights to accommodate the passenger pressure. Malaysian Airlines is pressing in two additional aircraft from January while Thai Airways is utilising its bigger Boeing 777 jumbos for its operations in India to take on the additional load.
While most sectors are choc-a-bloc with average load hovering around 95%-plus, flights to Southeast Asia — Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia — have seen maximum booking pressure. Indeed, so heavy is the load here that airlines are accommodating their passengers on other flights. Most carriers are all set to maintain nearly 100 % passenger load in the last 10 days of 2007.
The European sector too is facing heavy rush, especially from non-resident Indians.
The scene is quite similar on the domestic front too. Delhi is likely to witness maximum passenger rush with more than a lakh passengers expected to board flights in the X-mas-new year weekends.
Economy fares on full service airlines are expected to touch the upper limit of Rs 25,000- Rs 30,000 in the same sector during this period.
15/12/07 Chanchal Pal Chauhan/Economic Times

To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline

Categories: General Aviation Dec 2007