Airlines-government standoff over passenger fare continues

New Delhi: There was a stand-off between the aviation regulator DGCA and the low-fare airlines on the issue of fixing an upper and lower limit for monthly airfares in a meeting today, as the air-carriers did not agree to the government’s proposal of furnishing route-wise and category-wise airfares.
“We were clear about what we wanted. They’ve gone back shaking their heads. On Monday, we will have a meeting with the full service carriers on the same issue,” a senior official from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) told ET requesting anonymity. The full service carriers include Air India, Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines .
The meeting between the airlines and the DGCA was called after the government rejected distance-based airfares proposed by airlines on Tuesday, which worked out to be exorbitant.
“We will have a series of meeting in the next week and hope to arrive at results before the end of next week,” the official said. In order to protect passengers from abrupt hike in airfares at the last moment and make ticket pricing transparent, the government had asked all the airlines to put a price band to airfares every month and publish them in newspapers or their websites.
Airfares had shot up drastically, by about 200% on a few sectors, post Diwali. Reacting to the situation, the DGCA had issued directions on November 19, 2010 to airlines to furnish a copy of established route-wise tariff across their networks in various fare categories, in the manner offered in the market.
05/12/10 Economic Times

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Dec 2010