Airfares go north ahead of R-Day weekend break in Mumbai

MUMBAI: Those who need to make an emergency trip this Saturday from Mumbai to Vadodara, Jodhpur or Ahmedabad will probably be left with no option but to take the road. By Thursday evening, so few seats were left on flights to these poorly-served destinations that the cheapest return airfares were between Rs 30,000 and Rs 40,000.
Flight bookings for the weekend are high since next Monday is a holiday — Republic Day — letting people have a short vacation.
The cheapest return airfare for the hour-long Mumbai-Vadodara flight was Rs 25,600. But that was for landing in Vadodara at 8.30pm, Saturday. For a morning flight, you would need to shell out Rs 42,000. The cheapest return fare for Jodhpur was Rs 37,500. Jaipur was cheaper at Rs 21,200. For both Nagpur and Ahmedabad, the return fare was Rs 16,500. Flights to Diu were sold out for the weekend. Tickets were available for Tuesday, January 27, the cheapest one-way being Rs 17,000.
Predictably, fares to Goa stayed steep, the cheapest return ticket on flights with “decent” timings being for Rs 25,000. Otherwise, the cheapest return ticket was for Rs 15,000, which entailed landing at Mumbai at 5.50am on Monday. Comparatively cheap getaways are Bangalore, Hyderabad and Delhi.
Manmeet Ahluwalia of online travel portal Expedia said a survey done last year showed that 47% of Mumbaikars enjoy taking long weekend breaks. “We have seen a 25% increase in advanced bookings; 33-35% of people still rely on last-minute bookings.”
Sharat Dhall of online travel portal Yatra said flight bookings for the coming Republic Day weekend have increased 100% over last year. The portal recently conducted a survey of 2,500 respondents; 45% said they were interested in taking a break during the forthcoming weekend, but only 34% of them had actually made bookings. This showed Indians remained largely last-minute flight ticket buyers. Another finding was that 39% of travellers were willing to go to a destination beyond 400km during a long weekend, and 27% preferred to stay within a 200km radius.