Social Icons

twitterfacebooklinkedin

Thursday 9 October 2014

The real cost of low-cost fares

All of us have been tempted by the low fares that airlines keep offering. A ticket for a mere ?100 does sound tempting and a ?1 ticket sounds even better. Many of us have also used such low fares for impromptu holidays or weekend getaways.

However, how low are these low-fare tickets? Not very, and for some unlucky ones, they can also mean spending a lot more for the same journey.

First of all a ?100 ticket does not mean that the actual amount you pay is ?100 as over and above this you will also have to pay a number of taxes on which there are no discounts offered. In most cases, these work out to be quite a significant part of the final fare. The discount is only offered on the base fare and the fuel surcharge. A ticket, however, also includes statutory taxes such as passenger service fees, user development fees, airport development fees and service taxes which are not offered on a discount.


So a ?100 ticket means that you pay ?100 plus all these taxes. These taxes vary from airport to airport so a ticket from, say, Chennai to Mumbai and Chennai to Delhi will surely not cost ?100 each. Then Delhi charges both a departure and an arrival tax which form a part of even a low-cost ticket while the other airports only charge a departure tax.
Read news in full 09/10/14 Business Line
ct10_dipankar

No comments:

Post a Comment