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If you have been waiting to unleash the free spirit in you after months of being tied down due to Covid curbs, this is the right time to travel to the US or the UK with global airfares ruling at a rock-bottom level.
In contrast, domestic airfares have hit the roof during the festival season.
Airfares to international destinations peaked in January this year but declined in October on poor patronage. Airfares in the domestic sector have doubled in some of the key routes during this period.
For instance, round trip fare from Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai to New York-JFK was ₹85,000 just before the Covid pandemic. It increased to a peak of ₹1,30,000 for ‘air-bubble’ flights in January. However, now, the fare is around ₹70,000. Similarly, fares to the UK in pre-Covid days were ruling around ₹52,000.
They reached a peak of ₹76,000 in January but have dropped to ₹42,000 now, said P Murugesan, Director, Pioneer Aero Travels (Madras) Pvt Ltd.
Fares during pre-Covid were normal but during January it scaled new heights due to minimal options available to passengers. However, airlines like Emirates and British Airways have started their operations in a phased manner with lower-level fares as they are trying to attract more flyers, he said.
S Baskar, Managing Director of Champion Travels and Tours, said that visa issuance is one of the main reasons why not many passengers are travelling abroad. At present, only those for whom the travel is absolutely necessary are travelling. Business and leisure travels are yet to start. By November-end and December, more people will be travelling abroad, he said.
US curbs go
Travel agents expect more people to travel to the US after November as US President Joe Biden recently signed an order laying down new vaccine requirements for most foreign nationals. Stringent restrictions imposed on in-bound travellers from countries like China and India have also been lifted.
The US travel curbs, which were first imposed in early 2020, had barred most non-US citizens who, within the last 14 days, had been to Britain and countries like China and India.
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