Good news! Foreign, Indian airlines offer big discounts

Aiming at attracting Indian travellers to major global and domestic destinations, foreign and Indian carriers are vying with each other by offering discounted tickets.

The latest one to join the race is Air France, which is offering a flat discount on three classes of travel to South and Central America, making the tickets cheaper by up to Rs 10,000.

Under its scheme, Air France is offering its customers a discount of Rs 4,000 in economy, Rs 7,000 in premium economy and Rs 10,000 in business class for limited period online bookings, the airline said in a release.

The offer is valid for e-booking and ticketing till November 2 for travel period up to March 31 next year. The Air France-KLM group operates 250 daily flights across 231 destinations in 103 countries from its hubs at Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Amsterdam-Schiphol.

The Air France offer comes in the backdrop of special offers by several carriers, especially those in the Gulf and Southeast Asia, for flights to North America, Europe and Australia.

On the domestic front, as airlines like SpiceJet, Jet Airways and IndiGo came out with special offers, regional carrier Air Costa too rolled out Rs 999 discounts across its sector while Jet Airways extended its Rs 500 ticket price offer for one more day.

Vijaywada-based Air Costa is the latest to come out with its five-day 'Navratri special' fare offer. The bookings start tomorrow for travel between September 10 and September 28.

"Our Navratri special offer will help our guests to plan and book their tickets in advance for the upcoming holiday season," Air Costa chief executive K N Babu said.

In a related development, Jet Airways said it has extended the Rs 500 fares offer till tomorrow in view of the encouraging response from customers. "Jet Airways fare sale

has now been extended for one more day and the bookings under this offer will now close on Friday," a statement said.

Jet had on Wednesday announced Rs 500 economy fares on its domestic flights with a two-day booking window.