IA to halve fares on some key routes

Fare cuts will apply to "positioning flights".

From April 1, it will cut fares on several key routes by more than 50 per cent. The fare cuts will apply to what are called "positioning flights" that connect one or more domestic points before a flight takes off for an international destination.

IA's move, travel industry sources said, could trigger off another fare price war. However, IA's competitors seem to have been caught unawares by the new IA scheme. A senior official at Jet Airways refused to comment on the matter and said that he would have to study the scheme's implications.

The fare cuts mean that, for instance, on flight IC 597 (Mumbai-Goa-Calicut-Sharjah), the fare for a Mumbai-Goa ticket will be Rs 1,500 against the normal fare of Rs 3,115. The Mumbai-Calicut fare will be Rs 2,195, about 60 per cent lower than the normal fare of Rs 5,485.

Similarly, on the Mumbai-Calicut-Kochi-Sharjah flight, the Mumbai-Kochi fare will be Rs 2,605 compared with Rs 6,510 for a normal scheduled flight.

Confirming the development, a senior Indian Airlines executive told Business Standard, "It is a marketing strategy to induce people to fly more often. Also, the attractive pricing will enable us to fill seats which otherwise go vacant in positioning flights easily."

Air India has for long offered cheap tickets on flights on its domestic routes, but these often are night flights. This is the first time that IA is opting to offer a similar scheme. But in IA's case, most of the flights are peak day time flights. Hence the scheme is expected to get a tremendous response. Also, with limited seats offered via apex (advance purchase) schemes, passengers are looking forward to new promotional schemes whose fares are 40-50 per cent lower than normal fares, a leading travel agent in Mumbai said.

On IC 886, which flies to Delhi from Ahmedabad before flying overseas, the Ahmedabad-Delhi fare will be Rs 2,075 (versus Rs 5,180 for a normal flight). On IC 563/981 which flies from Ahmedabad to Hyderabad, the Ahmedabad-Hyderabad fare will be Rs 3,500 (versus Rs 5,975).

Similarly, the Goa-Chennai, Chennai-Trivandrum and Amritsar-Delhi fares will now be as low as Rs 3,000 (Rs 4,935), Rs 1,720 (Rs 4,300), Rs 1,100 (Rs 2,685), on positioning flights IC 576, IC967 and IC 881, respectively.