Limits on airline fares to be in place till 24 February 2021

Hyderabad: The Ministry of Civil Aviation on Thursday extended the duration for the fare bands for airlines up to 24 February 2021. These fare bands issued by the DGCA had been in place since 21 May 2020. Since then, the daily passenger traffic had crossed 2.05 lakh on 1 November 2020.

As per the fare bands, domestic flights with less than 40-minute duration should have lower and upper limits of Rs 2,000 and Rs 6,000; Rs 2,500 and Rs 7,500 for a 40-60 minutes flight; Rs 3,000 and Rs 9,000 for a 60-90 minutes flight; Rs 3,500 and Rs 10,000 for a 90-120 minutes flight; Rs 4,500 and Rs 13,000 for a 120-150 minutes flight; and Rs 5,500 and Rs 15,700 for a 150-180 minutes flight.

When domestic aviation was restarted in May 2020, the airlines were allowed to fly up to 33 per cent of the normal capacity. At that time, the average daily traffic was about 30,000. This cap was enhanced to 45 per cent from 26 June, and was further revised to 60 per cent from 2 September till date.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation said that air traffic is expected to rise due to the festival season and accordingly the upper cap would be revised to 70-75% of normal capacity in the coming days.