Airlines lower festive fares to retain fliers

Kolkata: Airlines are aggressively marketing promotional fares in their bid to ensure their traditional festive fliers aren't wooed by Mamata Banerjee's budget goodies to switch to the railways. In fact, apprehending a dream railway budget, many airlines had already begun promoting low-cost tickets for the festive season.
Many airlines are already offering festive season fares at discounts up to 60% for a two-week period in June. These tickets, all non-refundable, are available for onward journey dates extending till the middle or in case of some airlines end-September. Corresponding return tickets are also available cheap for travel dates till October, provided the onward journey is undertaken not later than September.
"We apprehended that after the railway budget, there would be a great rush for AC two and three-tier, Shatabdi and Rajdhani Express tickets. Without taking risks, we decided to introduce promotional fares to cash in on the rush for tickets during the festive season," said a senior Jet Airways official.
Under the latest scheme, an Air India ticket on the Kolkata-Delhi sector will cost only Rs 2,479 while one on Indigo will cost you only around Rs 2,000. The cost of an AC second class ticket on Rajdhani Express is Rs 2,000.
Elucidating on the offer, Paramount Airways Managing Director M Thiagarajan said: "The monsoon deal offered by us has been developed to encourage leisure travel. The economy fare would now be hard to resist." Spice Jet CEO Samyukth Sridharan echoed him saying, "Now, these unbeatable low fares will encourage more people to fly with us."
Aviation experts said airlines usually spent the lean season rationalizing flights and introduce special offers just before the peak season. But this year, they went on the promotional mode well in advance.
04/07/09 Arpit Basu/Times of India

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Jul 2009