LS polls a good omen for flight operators

Patna: Announcement of general elections has brought cheers to not only those who are participating in it, rather windfall also for people not related to it directly.
Flight operators represent one such group for whom the announcement of Lok Sabha polls has brought good omen. Courtesy these elections, the operators on the Delhi-Patna-Delhi route are witnessing a mad rush for tickets. Out of the four flights available on this route from Patna, three are going full load.
"A large number of political leaders and their aides generally book tickets these days. These bookings are in addition to the regular bookings which in turn lead to high booking rates," said a travel agent.
Explaining the correlation between rush and hike in the fare, the travel agent said that in lean periods airlines offer ticket on this route priced between Rs 4,000 and Rs 5,000, but increase in demand allows them to offer ticket at the higher rates hovering between Rs 10,000 and Rs 12,000.
The most obvious beneficiaries of this rush have been government-owned Air India and private operator Kingfisher. While Air India has two flights, one in the morning and the other in the afternoon, Kingfisher has its flight schedule in the evening.
According to Air India sources, most of the flights post-Holi were booked to capacity and on Saturday there were also many passengers who were in the waiting list despite the fact that tickets were priced well over Rs 11,000. A Kingfisher official, requesting anonymity, said that apart from booking at short notice, the Delhi flight was witnessing advance bookings as well though the tickets were priced high.
23/03/09 Sanjeev Kumar Verma/Times of India

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Mar 2009