The festival season has set in and airlines are out to cash in on last minute bookings for exotic and religious destinations. Mittu Chandilya, CEO, AirAsia India, spoke to Bloomberg TV India on his plans for the airline in the upcoming season, especially the focus on the South.

The festival season has set in. What’s the trend you are seeing on domestic and international routes?

I think with the festive season coming up, most Indians prefer to go to domestic locations. Partly I think you will have the usual suspects in Goa. You have the usual suspects up in the North-East as well as Kochi, which is an all-time hot favourite. But I think when the festival season comes, people tend to go to some of these destination with family, and going long distances tend to be cost prohibitive or, from a time perspective, a bit longer. But that said, international travel has always been on the upward trend and I think a lot of passengers want to go international. So I think you are getting a nice mix of both. You are getting some folks who do want to go international — and it’s short distances. South-East Asia is really hot, Dubai is hot, Colombo and Sri Lanka are a good destination. Domestically, I think traffic is kind of increasing to Port Blair. Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram are hot destinations. Goa is always full.

How is the air traffic growth in South India?

I think travel in South India has been increasing. It’s traditionally been decent but it’s always been surface transport as opposed to air travel. I think you are starting to see a lot of changes out there with airports which have started to be revamped to ensure that some of the larger airlines can come in.

And I think you are starting to see tourism in some of those pockets really trying to come through. But I think surface transport still remains a strong preference for a lot of folks for the same reason. I think when you take one car you can load up most of your family in a larger vehicle and go to some of these destinations in-out. I think the roads are in decent shape, locations such as Coorg in Karnataka are a hot favourite this time and I think those are areas which air travel just has not been able to penetrate. But I think South India is something that’s always been growing. It’s been more local. I think you are now getting a lot of traffic in another route which is Bangalore-Chandigarh direct. We are starting to see a lot of folks from Punjab coming down to South India.

If you are to rank various regions, where will South India figure?

I think South India ranks fairly well. I would say after Goa and may be Jammu-Kashmir and some of the North-Eastern areas, South India is right up there. It is centred on a few areas and a few pockets. If we can figure out a way, or the government can figure out a way, and try to link up some of these pockets, tie them up together, I think that could make it very viable. If you create an ecosystem for South India as a whole, as opposed to certain pockets, I think it will grow significantly more. But it’s always been a favourite destination for domestic passengers.

Has AirAsia seen any growth in passenger numbers?

We are seeing a significant increase in passengers. I think if you look at the industry as a whole, you have seen a 25 per cent jump in terms of the number of people flying. That is obviously an amalgamation of both business travellers as well as tourists. Since we focus predominantly on leisure travellers and smaller businesses, we have seen an increase in terms of people buying tickets at the last moment. I think as an industry it would just go on significantly.

Why do we see such a steep hike in airfares when it nears the festival season? The fares go up to exorbitant levels when you are in the middle of a festival…

Honestly it’s a factor of demand and supply as in any business but in airlines the festival seasons tend to see higher fares. You are starting to see that in this season too. People do want to travel and they tend to be last-minute travellers. In lean seasons airlines give a lot of promo packages. The trick that most passengers can use is try and book well in advance — book six months in advance — and you get tickets at anywhere like some ₹1,000. Book closer to it, it tends to be a bit more expensive.

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