Govt must consider raising upper caps on airfares: Dutta
NEW DELHI: The ministry of civil aviation should consider increasing the upper limits on domestic airfares as rising fuel prices has become a “real problem”, said IndiGo chief executive officer Ronojoy Dutta.
Moreover, India’s largest airline IndiGo is likely to introduce a business class in certain international flights as it aims to expand to regions such as Europe, Africa and Southeast Asia, he said in an interview.
The ministry had imposed lower and upper limits on domestic airfares based on flight duration when services were resumed on May 25, 2020, after a two-month lockdown following the outbreak of coronavirus. Airlines at present cannot charge a passenger less than ₹2,900 (excluding goods and services tax, or GST) and more than ₹8,800 (excluding GST) on flights with duration of less than 40 minutes.The lower caps were imposed to help airlines that have been struggling financially because of travel restrictions. The upper caps were imposed so that passengers are not charged huge amounts when the demand for seats is high. The fuel prices have been rising since the Russia-Ukraine war began on February 24.
Dutta said the two-class configuration is being considered for A321XLR planes, which will be delivered to IndiGo by Airbus at the end of 2024 and will operate in international sectors.
IndiGo currently has a fleet of 275 aircraft and all of them are narrow-body planes such as A320neos and A321neos with just economy class seats.
Dutta also said that adding wide-body aircraft to IndiGo’s fleet is “just a matter of time” once Indian airports develop themselves into hubs, where the management of time slots for arrivals and departures of flights is much better and the time taken to transfer a passenger from an arriving flight at one terminal to a connecting flight on another terminal is extremely less.
A wide-body plane has a big fuel tank allowing it to operate long-haul international flights. In India, Air India and Vistara operate wide-body planes.
On the budget carrier’s plans to increase legroom on planes operating in international sectors, Dutta said, “We are looking at the configuration of these planes and the obvious question is do we have two-class planes or not. So, we haven’t decided that.”