All’s fair in air fare war

For instance, if you travel from Delhi to Mumbai, a Rajdhani first class AC ticket comes to you at Rs 4,180, that is over Rs 700 expensive than a Air Sahara ticket (booked 30 days prior to your departure date) or Indian Airlines ticket (booked 21 days in advance). In comparison to a Rajdhani II-Tier ticket, you may need to shell out an additional Rs 1,000 for that ticket.

Over the last two years, the domestic aviation industry has witnessed very little passenger growth while the offered capacity has gone nowhere but up. As keeping the aircraft on ground turns out to be more expensive for the companies than keeping it in air, Indian Airlines, Jet Airways and Air Sahara have been offering discount fares on APEX since last July, and after that more and more discounts are coming the consumer’s way.

IA’s Anup Srivastava says, “Pricing is not cost-driven but market-driven and we even have to take in losses on some sectors, unlike A-I.”

Apart from the APEX fares, there are schemes where you can bid for your ticket online, super saver schemes offering further discounts and schemes offering holiday packages including air travel and accommodation among others. Thus, finding best deal for your air ticket may require a bit of extra effort.

APEX Fares

Do you plan your trips with enough time in hand? If yes, this is the scheme for you where you get discounted fares by making advance purchases. While a very popular and old practice abroad, APEX was only launched last year in India. But the scheme has its tag-ons — trips need to be planned in advance and in case of cancellations, you get poorer by almost 50 per cent of the ticket value. Also there are very limited seats for this scheme. The fares offered by the airlines are quite competitive with the cheapest coming from Air Sahara which has recently gone ahead to offer a ‘free companion’ scheme.

While Jet allows you to book tickets in 7, 15 and 21 days in advance and Sahara 5, 10, 15, 20 and 30 days prior to departure, Indian Airlines goes in for only a 15-day period.

If you wish to save some cash further and would not mind irregular flight service, check out Air-India flight routes, plus the new discounted rates. A-I has offered 5 per cent discount on the APEX fares offered by competition and the discount in case of night flights goes up to 15 per cent. The cancellation charge is just Rs 100. Plus, these fares will not have any APEX conditions and no restriction on the number of seats available to be booked.

Jitendra Bhargava, director of A-I says, “A-I traditionally has been offering lower fares for its domestic legs, being kept 25 per cent lower for flights departing between 8.00 am and 8.00 pm, and 32.5 per cent lower for flights between 8.00 pm and 8.00 am when compared to the fares of the domestic carriers.”

Online Auction of Tickets

Auction of air tickets is another attractive option but bids open just 7-days prior to the departure date and must be followed consistently. For instance, an IA Delhi-Goa ticket can be delivered at your doorstep at as low as Rs 5,830 compared to the normal fare of Rs 9,785. Similar schemes are offered by Sahara and Jet Airways.

Special Packages

It’s all about convenience! Air travel, accommodation and airport transfers followed by discounts on food and beverages (F&B) — the high-end holiday packages are offered for almost all popular destinations by IA and Jet and to Goa only by Sahara. Sahara offers Goa packages with 3-star upwards accommodation. Also it has introduced Sixer for economy class and Super Sixer for business class offering six coupons on select sectors. In the Long Haul scheme it offers free travel for a companion too.

Apart from Flyaway Packages (2N/3D onwards) to destinations like Andamans, Jammu (including trip to Vaishno Devi shrine), Kashmir and Ooty, among others, Indian Airlines is offering Super Saver-Golden Edge offering, a 4 coupons or 8 coupons valid on most destinations and valid for 90 days from the date of issue. Per person fare for four coupons scheme is Rs 25,000 (economy class) and Rs 35,000 (business class).

A 2N/3D Delhi-Kochi-Delhi package from Jet Airways with stay at Taj Malabar (on twin-sharing basis), meal credit of Rs 1,400, sightseeing and sunset cruise in Kochi harbour comes at Rs 35,202 (economy package) and Rs 22,339 (apex package).