It is a season of discounts on the busy Mumbai-London route and Air India has kept the fare party going. The national carrier is offering all inclusive return economy fares of Rs 42,000-44,000 on this route as it struggles to fill up the flights.
Mumbai-London is a highly competitive route with Air India, Jet Airways and British Airways flying five flights amongst themselves daily.
All the airlines operate a Boeing 777 aircraft with capacity of 240-340 seats.
The competition has heated up with Virgin Atlantic launching its London-Mumbai flight this month. Virgin's launch also triggered a fare war amongst the carriers and while other airlines are back to normal fares (Rs 60,000 and above), Air India continues with its discount sale. Air India is offering the discounted fare to London till November 7 and for travel till December end.
"Fares have been dropped because loads are light. We have kept window of sale longer than others. Our London flights were normalised last month and we are keen to attract passengers," an Air India executive said.
Air India's international services were crippled for about three months because of pilots' strike and services were gradually restored to key sectors.
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Air India now plans to introduce Boeing 787 Dreamliner on the London route from mid November. Currently, the airline flies Boeing 787 to Frankfurt, Dubai and on domestic routes.
"The response to our Frankfurt flight was good and business class was full on the first Boeing 787 flight," he said.
Another reason for lowering of fares is that October-November months are lean season for travel on this sector.
"It's a shoulder period. Outbound travel to Europe usually ends in October and arrivals from Europe and US are mostly in December. But such discount fares are marketing gimmick. Only few seats are on offer and some times the fare is available for one way journey," said a travel agent.
Last month, Virgin Atlantic dropped the fares as a part of its inaugural offer. Virgin is keen to grab market share on the route and on returning to Mumbai after three years began selling return tickets around Rs 50,000. It then dropped fares to around Rs 42,000 and other airlines followed suit.
Jet Airways and British Airways too sold tickets for travel till November 16 at the same fare level like Virgin for three days and are now back to selling normal fares. Virgin is again offering its inaugural fare of Rs 50,000 on Mumbai-London route.