Airfares soar; delays throw holiday plans out of gear

NEW DELHI: It is the end of the year and as expected, air ticket prices have shot through the roof. This year, however, SpieceJet's financial crisis has left passengers in worse trouble. As delays and cancellations throw your holiday plans out of gear, get prepared to either give up on your holiday or pay through your nose for fresh tickets.

On Friday, the cheapest one-way ticket to Kochi for Monday was for Rs 23,600. This was for a 16-hour long flight with one stop. For Goa, the cheapest one-way flights start at Rs 11,958 and go up to Rs 15,607. A one-way ticket on the Delhi-Kolkata sector will cost upwards of Rs 12,827.

Most of the cheapest flights on each sector were available with SpiceJet, unsurprisingly since it is now highly uncertain whether the airline will operate its flights or not.

Anil Kalsi, a prominent travel agent said that with no government control on fares, passengers are paying much more than they should be. "Tickets have been priced either too high or too low which is causing problems for both passengers and the industry. There has to be a fixed realistic band within which pricing can be done. Year-end tickets are always more expensive but this time, they are also higher due to the SpiceJet crisis. When SpiceJet cancels flights, passengers have to book fresh tickets to not lose out on hotel bookings or ruin holiday plans," he said.

Kalsi gave the example of a destination wedding in Trivandrum for which 71 passengers were booked on a SpiceJet flight from Mumbai on December 16. "On December 15, SpiceJet cancelled and we had to rebook all the passengers on business class fares across several airlines. The host eventually ended up paying as much as Rs 46,000 per passenger," he said.

For stations like Delhi, where cancellations and delays are certain to take place due to fog, passengers should be prepared for last minute changes in bookings. With airlines charging as much as Rs 3,000 or more for a cancellation, passengers should not expect to get back much on tickets booked earlier at cheaper rates.