Spot airfares down by up to 50% in January

Spot fares of Mumbai-Delhi flights have come down from 6,000-27,000 14,000-27,000 in December. The spot fare of Mumbai-Bengaluru has become expensive at present. from 4,000-6,000 4,000-14,000 in December. Similarly, fares are lower for Delhi-Kolkata from 8,000-18,000 15,000-22,000 in December, data from travel portals showed.

“Average spot fares have come down by 15-20% month-on-month in January due to lack of demand as compared to the peak travel season of December. The fall in airfares could also be due to the recent travel sales being launched by airlines in January. December saw significant travel demand due to the Christmas and New Year holidays, which also led to an increase in airfares.

India’s aviation market witnessed the strongest demand since the onset of COVID in December with monthly air passenger traffic at 12.7 million passengers, marginally down from the December 2019 pre-COVID period of 13 million passengers.

India also saw a record number of air passengers on 24 December as 435,500 people took to the skies on 2,904 flights. This was also higher than the daily average of 2,900 flight departures and 400,000 air passengers in the pre-Covid year of 2019.

According to Yatra.com and Cleartrip, airfares have come down by at least 14% in January as compared to December. However, travel websites also saw an increase in demand during the following week. Cleartrip said the December spot fares were 30% higher than the spot fares seen in January so far.

Bharat Malik, business head of flights at Yatra Online Ltd, said, “We are seeing a 10-15 per cent increase in fares during the Republic Day weekend.

Similarly, EaseMyTrip has observed an increase of around 20% in airfares during the Republic Day weekend as compared to regular days of the month. According to travel website Kayak, there has been an increase in inquiries for trips to Goa, Dubai, New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangkok.

“Domestic flight searches around Republic Day are up 185% compared to the same period pre-pandemic. Our data shows a growth of almost 24% for international flight searches,” said Tarun Tahiliani, Country Manager, Kayak India.

Industry experts said though airfares declined in January, they are still high due to higher jet fuel prices and rupee volatility.

According to Kayak, the average domestic return economy flight is still 40% more expensive than in 2019, and the average price of a return economy flight in Asia is about 37% more expensive than in 2019, and a long-haul international return Economy flight is about 32% more expensive than in 2019.

“Several factors influenced the hike in fares. Jet fuel prices rose 4.2% from November. Market forces were also a factor as people resumed travel plans after a gap of almost two years,” said Nishant Pitti, CEO & Co-Founder, EasyMyTrip.

“However, we expect a modest increase in airfares over the next few months as supply stagnates due to entry of new players in the aviation industry, which provokes a price war,” Pitti said.