Flight Fare Reaches 4 lakh For UK, DGCA Soughts Information From Companies After Complaint
New Delhi, 9th August 2021: Flight tickets prices on various international routes have increased surprisingly during the Corona period. British Airways one-way fare from Delhi to London for August 26 has reached Rs 3.95 lakh. Following a complaint by IAS officer Sanjeev Gupta on Twitter, aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has sought fare information from companies. Sanjeev Gupta, secretary of the Inter-State Council Secretariat, Ministry of Home Affairs, tweeted on Saturday and complained that British Airways is charging Rs 3.95 lakh.
Vistara and Air India are also charging fares between Rs 1.2 lakh and Rs 2.3 lakh for August 26. This comes at a time when admissions to UK colleges have started. For a student selected for admission in a college there based on their merit, hefty rent is a punishment.
Gupta said that he has also alerted the Union Civil Aviation Secretary PS Kharola about this. A senior DGCA official said that the regulator has asked the airlines to give detailed information on India-UK flight tickets. It is noteworthy that the minimum and maximum airfares for domestic flights were fixed on May 25 last year.
On the question of fares, Vistara, which operates flights on Delhi-London and Mumbai-London routes, said, “The ticket price is determined by supply and demand. At present, only 15 flights are allowed between India and UK in a week. As flights increase and more capacity will be allowed, the fares will come down.
Scheduled international flights have been suspended in India since March 23 last year. Since July 2020, limited flights are being operated under the air bubble arrangement with more than two dozen countries including the UK. An air bubble is an arrangement between two countries in which they allow each other’s passengers to travel by air.
The government made a travel booking refund policy during the Corona period, 90 percent of the people in the country believe that the government should make a policy in case of refund on travel booking cancellation during the Corona period. This has come to the fore in the survey of the online platform Local Circles. This survey was conducted among more than 37 thousand people in 359 districts. Many travel agents, hotels, and airlines do not offer any refunds for cancellations.
95 percent of those surveyed said that the current policies of companies are not in the interest of the consumer. People say that at least in this era of an epidemic, civil aviation, tourism, railways or home ministry should make a policy in this regard.
