Airlines ground last-minute fare discounts

Prices of tickets booked three days prior have soared 70% over last summer's fares

Book airline tickets early if you are planning to travel this summer. The days of last-minute deals are over.

Airlines have stopped offering last-minute discounts to fill flights. This has led to a steep rise in air fares on key metro routes.

Tickets booked three days before the flight on metro routes are over 70 per cent costlier than last summer, according to travel portal Yatra.com.

The average fare for a one-way Delhi-Mumbai ticket is Rs 8,810 in the second week of April, up from Rs 5,132 last year.

The Mumbai-Delhi fare is Rs 9,572, up from Rs 5,299. One-way Delhi-Kolkata fares are up from Rs 6,260 to Rs 9,625 and Kolkata-Delhi fares are up from Rs 5,744 to Rs 10,084.

A survey by the travel portal shows 50 per cent of travellers now book tickets one to three months in advance against 43 per cent a year ago.

Fares have increased more for flights to Bengaluru as airlines have been forced to reduce the number of flights to the city.

The fare for a Mumbai-Bengaluru ticket is Rs 7,311 now, up from Rs 3,761 last year.

The Bengaluru airport runway is partially closed from February 19 to April 30 (10.30 am-5 pm) for renovation.

Analysts said airlines were till the first half of 2016-17 offering low last-minute fares to use higher passenger loads to compensate for low incremental yields.

“There has been a reversal of this practice since January 2017. Fares of tickets booked near journey dates are steep for all airlines,” Kotak Institutional Equities noted in a report.

“This signals the return of discipline in pricing by airlines. For almost a year unbelievably low fares persisted and yields of airlines were under severe pressure,” said an executive with a private airline.

Since December 31, jet fuel prices have risen by around 13 per cent.

Low fares have been driving air passenger growth in India, the fastest growing market, according to the International Air Transport Association. In 2016, the country’s air traffic grew 20 per cent to 131 million departures.

Photograph: Reuters