Airlines hide ‘consumer friendly’ info

New Delhi: A day ahead of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s (DGCA) Wednesday deadline requiring all domestic airlines to make fares across different sectors public, all domestic airlines, except for state-owned Air India, posted tariff data sheets on their websites. But, for a routine traveler, all of this read more like unprocessed data, and less of information.
In providing a break-up of tariffs on route basis, most airlines have omitted some or the other detail. For instance, on the IndiGo website, the Mumbai-Delhi fare sheet has 14 columns, first column specifying the distance between the two cities, the last column stating the surcharge being charged and the dozen columns in between representing as many fare levels. These dozen columns represent nine regular fare levels and three AP (advance purchase) fare levels. These are basically different fare buckets in the economy class with each bucket holding a specified number of seats. Also, the fine print states that these do not include passenger service fee, user development fee, transaction fee and service tax. Similarly, a quick look at country’s leading carrier Jet Airways’ fare sheet reveals that the carrier has forgotten to mention fares on one of the busiest sector, Delhi-Mumbai.
08/12/10 Smita Aggarwal/Indian Express

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Dec 2010