"Airlines are charging more to recover costs and avoid bankruptcy. The costs in this industry are very high and the margins thin. The airfares are dynamic and increase with the rise in demand for seats," Singh said. The lowest return ticket price between Delhi and Goa sector today was over Rs 19,000, on Delhi-Kolkata sector more than Rs 17,000 and over Rs 16,000 on the Delhi-Mumbai route, which has about 60 flights a day. Officials said more transparency was needed in fares to let the passenger know what fare they have to pay, noting that earlier, the fare-sheet used to be published in the newspapers on a regular basis by all airlines. On the prevailing system of fare buckets, they said the passengers should know how many seats are being offered in each fare bucket and what was available and what price. Recently, Civil Aviation Ministry officials had suggested to the airlines at a meeting that they should charge low spot fares on the travel date to fill up about 30 per cent of their seats which go vacant. They pointed out that the average passenger load factor for all Indian airlines hovered around 70-75 per cent, implying that the remaining seats on a flight go empty. At a meeting of the Civil Aviation Economic Advisory Committee, they suggested that the airlines could charge last minute spot-fares at low fares to fill up their seats. The Supreme Court had in December some time back directed the DGCA to examine the tariff structure of Indian airlines in view of the wide range of the base prices of air tickets, expressing concern over the the massive differential between the lowest and highest air fares on the price bands.
