The airfares on the Prayagraj route corrected 30-50 per cent on Wednesday on major routes after airlines deployed additional capacity amidst the Centre’s advisory, sources said.
The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) has held several rounds of review meetings on high airfares on the Prayagraj route with airlines during the last few days and had advised them to deploy more capacity.
On Wednesday, the Union Minister of Civil Aviation, Ram Mohan Naidu, met airline representatives to review the adequacy of air connectivity to Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh from across the country while ensuring reasonable fares during the once-in-144-year Mahakumbh Mahotsav.
“Regular coordination meetings are being held to provide a seamless and comfortable travel experience for millions of devotees attending the world’s largest religious gathering from January 13 to February 26, 2025,” he wrote on his social media handle on X (formerly Twitter).
Stampede aftermath
Besides, airlines fearing an impact on passenger traffic to and from Prayagraj after the stampede that occurred at Mahakumbh, have further reasons to lower airfares, sources added. However, the industry is yet to fully gauge the impact of the tragedy on passenger traffic.
On Wednesday, the price of a one-way flight ticket from Delhi to Prayagraj declined sharply. Prices dropped to ₹13,000 (lowest) and ₹20,000 (highest) as against ₹22,000 (lowest) and ₹33,000 (highest) reported a few days ago.
Normally, a one-way flight ticket from Delhi to Prayagraj is priced at about ₹5,000-7,000.
The data from the ixigo portal showed that average spot fares for flights from Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai to Prayagraj are ranging from ₹13,000-30,000 till February 4. Ticket fares on some of these routes had crossed ₹45,000 prior to the lowering exercise.
The additional capacity introduced by the airlines contributed significantly in bringing down prices, a source told businessline.
“Airlines are trying to comply with the advisory issued by the Centre to deploy additional capacity,” an industry insider said.
“The Centre has aggressively taken up the issue of capacity and fares with airlines. Since Monday, several rounds of meetings have been held with their representatives to discuss the issue.”
On their part, airlines and online travel agencies said that additional capacity was deployed from Wednesday.
Adding capacity
According to an IndiGo spokesperson, the airline has brought down fares on all routes to Prayagraj by 30-50 per cent.
Currently, SpiceJet, IndiGo, Air India, Akasa and Alliance Air have flights to Prayagraj.
These flights serve the demand between Prayagraj and Delhi, Bhubaneswar, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Bilaspur, Raipur, Lucknow, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Guwahati, Chandigarh, Dehradun and Indore. About 81 new flights were added to the schedule in January 2025.
Currently, there are 132 flights per week operating with about 80,000 monthly seats to Prayagraj from across India.
Apart from scheduled air carriers, private operators are also flying to the Prayagraj airport, which has recently been upgraded and refurbished.
The development comes after airfares to Prayagraj had risen more than 100 per cent from different cities as pilgrims flock in large numbers to take a dip in the Ganges during the ongoing Mahakumbh.
Currently, Prayagraj is directly connected to 17 cities via flights as against eight cities in December 2024, taking its air connectivity to 26 cities in total.
During the Mahakumbh, the MoCA cited that Prayagraj airport witnessed footfalls of 30,172 passengers and operated 226 flights in just one week, surpassing the 5,000-passenger mark in a single day for the first time.
In addition, night flights were also introduced, enabling 24/7 connectivity for the first time in 106 years.