Festival season hike in airfares: Ravi asks DGCA to act
30 Sep 2011
New Delhi: With 'festival season' demand already resulting in a substantial hike in airfares, the civil aviation ministry has asked the civil aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, to look at the possibility of providing some relief to air travellers.
"I have asked DGCA to use its powers and look into the matter, although beyond a point, we cannot do anything," civil aviation minister, Vayalar Ravi.
Ravi said the regulator would examine the issue as it affected the travelling public.
Though fares are up in anticipation of the festival season, sources in the airline industry point out that high passenger traffic has resulted in low-fare tickets being snapped up first leaving just the high fare options available.
Also, a fare monitoring committee of the DGCA, set up a year ago, was analysing fare data on a daily basis, according to sources.
Expressing concern over high jet fuel prices, Ravi said he would soon write to state governments to reduce sales tax on aviation turbine fuel (ATF), but confessed that similar requests had been made earlier too without any response.