Yogesh Sarkar
Administrator
This is something I have been wondering for a while, why are domestic flights in India more expensive than flights to some of the South-Asian countries or for that matter, even Middle-Eastern countries?
Around peak travel season, flight to majority of the holiday destinations within India gets expensive. Even right now, you cannot find a flight from Delhi to Leh in June for less than 10k, while you can easily get return ticket for Thailand or even UAE for around 12k!I don't know, I'd like to know, more, without getting too technical.
However,...
The market in India is big, high traffic. So far I know, it is not so expensive, relatively, as in SA. Why Johannesburg-Nairobi is almost as much as flights to India and Thailand, when it's about 1/4 of the distance.
Flights to/from Thailand are inexpensive and there seems to be no state subsidising. UAE, I don't know, never heard of any subsidising.
You are right. When Kingfisher went bankrupt, ticket prices soared.One of the major facts is that despite the increasing number of passengers the competition has not grown at an equal rate.
India aviation market share has been mostly monopolized. First Air India, then Jet and now Indigo. Couple that with the high rates for aviation fuel in India.
Fuel is the biggest operational cost in India for airlines. And airlines in India keep failing from Kingfisher, to Spicejet(almost failed) to Jet airways ( which has now reduced no of flights). This further adds to the gap between demand and supply.
To bring down fares we need something similar to Jio happening in aviation sector. Jio brought down the data rates by its competitive offerings.
May be Indian aviation companies need to look at Southwest of US(long time fuel contracts ultimately reducing fuel costs) and Ryan Air of europe(sticking to single type of airplane to reduce overheads) to be profitable.