Domestic air travel recorded its steepest fall in seven years in July when 45.4 lakh people took to the skies - 10% less than the 50.4-lakh figure recorded in the same month last year. India was witnessing low single-digit negative growth for the past three months in domestic air travel, but a combination of very high airfares amid a weakening economy in the lean travel month of July aggravated the fall.
A senior airline official admitted that fares were higher but predicted that air travel will be back in business in the October-December period. "With Kingfisher almost out of the market, airlines are now able to recover their costs from fares.
Last year, everyone was forced to sell way below cost as Air India (domestic) was then recovering from a pilots' strike and had lowered fares to get people back on board. Today, Kingfisher is also doing that to get flyers but their schedule unreliability is common knowledge," the official said.
» Read Complete News.....(You need to login first to read complete news). New User? Register for FREE!
» Back to Travel News