According to a report in Economic Times, traditionally, monsoon months- July-September are considered lean period for air traffic. This is demonstrated by the fact that while September this year witnessed an 11 per cent growth in traffic at 39.11 lakh domestic passengers compared to the same month last year, this was less than 40.38 lakh passengers in August this year. But with the festive season round the corner, demand for personal travel has increased substantially. In addition, strong financial markets will lead to more spending and, in turn, boost corporate travel, too. 

“Demand for air travel has increased by 13 per cent this month. But there is also a corresponding capacity addition taking place. So, the increase in fares is not going to be unearthly. Increase in airfares will depend on what capacity addition takes place on a particular sector with rise in demand,” said Ankur Bhatia, Executive Director, Bird Group. 

Bhatia cited examples of routes between India and South-East Asia (Malaysia, Bangkok) where a lot of capacity has been added. Therefore, fares might not go up on those sectors. However, the Delhi- London route has not witnessed any capacity addition while the demand has evidently firmed up. Therefore, fares could go up on that sector by five-ten per cent. 

According to SpiceJet, with rising demand aircraft are witnessing full passenger load and after a certain level of occupancy is reached, airfares are staying higher for the remaining seats. Since both SpiceJet and IndiGo are planning to get delivery of at least seven-eight aircraft each by March, there will be enough capacity to meet the demand. 

“Consumers may get to see a 10-15 per cent increase on all domestic sectors till January,” said Subhash Goyal, Chairman, STIC Travel Group.

Every airline allocates a certain number of seats at a certain price band. The first few seats are priced towards the lower band so that airlines can get a sense of how a particular aircraft is filling up. That is why tickets booked earlier usually cost less. In that sense, there is the possibility that airlines may allocate more seats towards the higher price band to cash in on the demand.