DGCA issues 7 fare bands for air travel; ticket prices between Rs 2,000- Rs 18,600

Aviation regulator DGCA on Thursday issued seven bands of ticket pricing with lower and upper fare limits, hours after  Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri announced a cap on domestic air fare till August 24.

The first such band will consist of flights that are of less than 40 minutes duration. The lower and the upper fare limits for the first band is Rs 2,000 and Rs 6,000, respectively.

The remaining bands are as follows:

40-60 minutes:  Rs 2,500-Rs 7,500

60-90 minutes:  Rs 3,000-Rs 9,000

90-120 minutes:  Rs 3,500-Rs 10,000

120-150 minutes:  Rs 4,500-Rs 13,000

150-180 minutes:  Rs 5,500-Rs 15,700

180-210 minutes:  Rs 6,500-Rs 18,600

Domestic flight services are scheduled to restart under strict norms from May 25 after a two-month hiatus.

At a press meet earlier in the day, Puri said that in metro cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata, flights have been allowed to operate one-third of their capacity.

While in the metro to non-metro cities and vice-versa, where the weekly departures are more than 100, each flight can operate one-third of its capacity. And, for all other cities, airlines are free to operate on any route on one-third of its capacity.

Puri further said the Union government will soon go for international operations, but with "tweaked rules".

Meanwhile, aviation consultancy CAPA South Asia said capping airfares is a "bad and unfortunate" decision as pricing is most strategic to airlines. Global grouping IATA also said carriers should have the freedom to make their commercial decisions.

Operations of all scheduled commercial passenger flights were suspended on March 25 when the nationwide lockdown to combat the coronavirus pandemic came into force.