Airfares up as rail disruptions push people to fly

CHENNAI: Airfares for 24-hour advance booking have increased with heavy rain and cancellation of trains forcing people to flock to airlines to travel to Mumbai, Kolkata, Jaipur and a few other destinations in the north. High demand has pushed up fares by more than 50% in November, usually a lean season.
Airfares for Mumbai went up from 3,500 to 8,000 and fare for Jaipur touched 17,000 against the usual rate of 5,000- 6,000.
The increase in fares is an indication of the demand after railways cancelled trains to Mumbai, Vijayawada, Lucknow in the last two days. Trains that are being operated are either running on diverted route or are delayed due to heavy rain in parts of Andhra Pradesh.
Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI) member Basheer Ahmed said people not wanting to take risks and those who don't want to suffer delays or hold-ups travelling by trains were switching to flights.
"A family of five today booked tickets to Raipur via Delhi as they did not want to get stranded travelling by train. They had to spend 12,000 per ticket. The normal fare is around 8,000," he said.
Fare on a direct flight to Jaipur on Thursday evening increased to 17,000. "There is good demand for seats on morning and evening flights," said an airline official. The Chennai-Ahmedabad fare shot up to 10,000 to 18,000 after railways cancelled Chennai-Ahmedabad train on Thursday. Similar is the fare range for Kolkata.
Delhi is the only route with a 5,000 airfare for a 24-hour advance booking. "If more trains to Delhi are cancelled there will be a marginal increase in the demand for seats on flights. But most of the people will postpone their travel than fly because train travellers to Delhi comprise mostly families," he added.
Tamil Nadu Rajasthani Prawasi Ekta Sangh member Ashok Rajpurohit said that trains had become unreliable.
"A passenger took two days to reach Chennai from Vijayawada because Navjeevan Express was terminated at Gudur. He had to stay there for the night and board another train the next day to reach Chennai. A majority of the people are waiting for the train services to resume as many of the families cannot afford flights," he said.
Airfares are expected to be low in the last two weeks of this month as not many people are expected to travel and ministry of civil aviation has announced its intent to cap fares for regional routes. "Domestic travel will peak next month," said an airline official.