New Delhi: A day after Jet Airways launched a promotional offer on near
ly two million seats, Air India on Wednesday launched special fares offering a discount of up to 40% on one-way fares on domestic flights.
Jet Airways on Tuesday offered 20 lakh seats at Rs2,250 for travel till the year-end.
While official sources said the lowest fares had so far not breached the lowest rates given by the airlines to aviation regulator DGCA, civil aviation minister Ajit Singh said, “We are not going to prescribe anything (fares). If we fix a lower bracket and the airlines charge lower than that, the issue will go to the competition council.”
Maintaining that the government would not regulate fares, Singh said a cell to monitor the fares was being set up in the ministry and not to regulate them.
“Whatever needs to be done will be done in consultation with the airlines.”
Travel portals showed that Air India was offering the lowest fares on most of the major sectors.
On the Delhi-Mumbai route, an economy class one-way ticket for mid-April was priced at Rs3,201 by Air India, Rs3,340 by IndiGo, Rs3,350 by Jet Airways and Rs4,426 by SpiceJet.
The Delhi-Chennai sector saw an Air India ticket costing Rs3,701, IndiGo’s being Rs3,840, Jet Airways’ Rs3,850, Jet Konnect’s Rs4,008 and SpiceJet’s at Rs4,714.
A ticket on Delhi-Kolkata route cost Rs3,201 for Air India, Rs3,241 for IndiGo, Rs4,662 for SpiceJet and Rs4,663 for Jet Konnect.
Similarly on the Delhi-Hyderabad, Air India’s ticket was priced at Rs3,201, IndiGo’s Rs3,290, Jet’s Rs3,350 and SpiceJet’s Rs4,641.
