The exorbitant airfares charged by some domestic airline carriers attracted the attention of a parliamentary standing committee, which concluded that these companies were misleading the public and inducing passengers to pay more. The committee also drew attention to incorrect information about the number of available seats and ticket costs posted by private airlines on their websites.
“The level of misinformation can be gauged from the fact that even after the last ticket has been sold, the website is showing the same number of seats as were announced before the sale of tickets. This shows that the airline operator is misleading the public. Doing and forcing.” Passengers will have to pay more, the panel said in the Demand for Grants (2023-24) report of the Ministry of Civil Aviation.
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In view of the above, it is recommended that the Ministry may frame appropriate guidelines regarding rationalization of fares and publish the correct information on the website of the airlines, while publishing the correct information on the website of the airlines.
It also pointed out that the ‘domestic airline sector is reeling on predatory pricing’. “A particular airline may sell its air tickets at such a low level that other competitors cannot compete and are forced to exit the market. The company that does so will suffer an initial loss, but will, eventually, drive the competition out of the market. runs profitably and is raising its prices again,” the report said.
The Committee desired to know whether the aviation regulator, DGCA had ever intervened to check the fares of air tickets. It also expressed concern over the fact that in the domestic sector, private airlines are charging different fares for the same industry, route and exact direction of flights.
This is especially so for the northeastern region and hilly regions, including Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, where domestic sector ticket prices are sometimes higher than international airline sector prices.
The Committee noted that after the repeal of the Air Corporations Act, 1953, air fares are market-driven, depend on market fares, and are neither established nor regulated by the government. “It notes the observations of the DGCA that air fares were regulated for a certain period during the Covid pandemic in compliance with the Aircraft Act, 1934, and the regulation was withdrawn as the Covid pandemic subsided and Airlines are free to fix reasonable tariffs in accordance with the Aircraft Rules, 1937, with regard to cost of operations, services, reasonable profits and generally prevailing tariffs,” the report said.
With IANS inputs