Steep discounts on limited-period air travel abroad get good response

Mumbai: With leading global airlines in India offering deep discounts on international air fares for a limited period, travel agencies and portals have seen ticket sales rise by 15-20 per cent in May over April.
Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Lufthansa and British Airways are offering deep discounts. Singapore Airlines, for instance, has offered a return ticket between all major cities and Singapore for Rs 11,000 and a similar offer for Bangkok for just Rs 12,455.
Lufthansa is running a series of offers as part of its golden jubilee celebrations. A round trip from Delhi to London starts at Rs 36,100 and a round trip from Bangalore to Amsterdam will cost Rs 19,295. Its spokesperson said the number of clicks on its website and the number of bookings have increased sharply.
“This is a very good time for airlines. Elections are over, the stock market is moving up. The sentiments are working well for people. Now they want to take a break and go for a holiday,” said Bhawna Agarwal, co-founder and head of air business at Yatra.com.
“We can see a late peak happening in May. April was bad, but in May we saw airlines coming up with aggressive discounts and offers. Most of these are instant hits and people are wasting no time to grab those. We are witnessing 10 to 15 per cent rise in bookings as compared to last month and that’s a very good sign,” she added.
“The fare cuts and offers have helped in sales going up by 20 per cent in May, as compared to last month. We had better sales during the same period last year. But after the initial months of this year, we were not expecting such figures for the holiday season. The sales are definitely better than we expected. People are preferring a short trip abroad this time,” said Anup Kanuga, chairman of the western region chapter of the Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI).
29/05/09 Ruchi Panigrahi/Business Standard

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Categories: Foreign May 2009