Due to a sudden rise in airfares during the Diwali period, Civil aviation minister Ajit Singh on Saturday ordered a probe into the pricing mechanism of airlines, saying "there must be some reasonableness and limit" despite the demand-supply maths.The Competition Commission of India too may look into complaints that airlines acted as a cartel to push up prices in the festive season.
On Diwali eve, economy-class tickets from Mumbai to Kolkata went for up to anything between Rs 35,000 and Rs 43,000, while business class tickets cost over Rs 60,000. A Delhi-Ahmedabad economy ticket of a full-service airline on Diwali was between Rs 6,500 and Rs 39,000.
"I have received complaints of overcharging. Airlines have a system of putting seats in different fare buckets (fares rise as an aircraft gets filled). The range of fares in this bucket system must have some logic," said Singh. "Also, we do not know how many seats there are in each bucket... I am asking the DGCA to examine this issue," Singh said.
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