Cheaper air fares for students

Bangalore: Airlines are going whole hog to woo students travelling overseas for higher studies this year.
The give aways include 20%-30% discount on tickets with free stopover visits and site seeing, excess baggage allowance of up to 60 kg and other freebies worth Rs 11,000.
The student segment brings in significant revenues for airlines between July and September, as many international universities begin their courses during this period. On an average, close to 60,000 Indian students venture aboard for further studies annually.
And analysts say that the market is getting bigger as countries like Australia and New Zealand are seeing Indian student traffic growing almost 100% year-on-year. Typically, students carry 20 kg of excess luggage, which is over and above the average prescribed allowance of 23 kg on international travel.
Jet Airways has just announced its plans to offer students flying out of India an excess baggage allowance of between 40 kg and 60 kg for travel to the US, Canada, Australia, Europe, UK, Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong.
Kingfisher Airlines is offering an excess baggage allowance of 45 kg on its international routes, which is also applicable on domestic connecting flights and international code share airlines.
For every kg of excess luggage airlines levy a fee of 1% of the basic fare price.
Emirates, Singapore Airlines and Air India are offering excess baggage allowance of 20 kg to 25 kg and more, depending on the destination.
Malaysian Airlines offers students a stopover visit to Kuala Lumpur at an additional cost of just Rs 1,000. Some other airlines too are considering to introduce free stopover visits.
22/05/09 Anshul Dhamija & Darinia Khongwir/Times of India

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Categories: Foreign May 2009, Indian Aviation- In General May 2009