The Hindu Business Line : Domestic air fares to go up 10 pc

FLYING within the country will cost more from October 14. Faced with the continuing northward movement in global oil prices, most domestic airlines plan to impose an across-the-board 10 per cent hike in domestic fares from October 14.

While the three leading airlines - Jet Airways, Air Sahara and Indian Airlines — plan to hike fares by 10 per cent in both business and economy class, the country's only low cost airlines, Air Deccan has no such plans.

"Air Deccan is not planning to hike fares. We feel that the pricing strategy followed by our airline still allows us to charge the existing fares despite the northward movement in oil prices," the airlines, the Managing Director, Captain G.R Gopinath, said.

In the past few months the price of aviation turbine fuel (ATF) has moved in such a fashion that the expenditure of a leading airline on this account alone has increased by Rs 13 crore per month in a span of just three months, sources said.

The three leading airlines are expected to make a firm announcement about the fare hike in the next couple of days. The fare hike is also likely to affect the dollar paying international passengers flying on the domestic routes. Meanwhile late tonight there were indications that Air Sahara, which is also expected to increase its fares, may not hike some of the lower categories of promotional fares that it has on offer.

Attempts to reach senior officials of all the three airlines to get details of the proposed fare hike proved futile. The depreciation of the rupee against the dollar in the recent month coupled with the northward movement in global oil prices are said to be the two main reasons for airlines proposing to hike domestic fares.

The proposed fare hike, as and when it comes into effect, will be the second time this year alone that domestic air fares will go up. The three-domestic airlines had imposed a 10 per cent hike in June.