New Delhi: year after Kingfisher Airlines discontinued operations, the combined capacity of all airlines in India has barely recovered to 2,30,000 seats, still 10,000 adrift of the number offered when Vijay Mallya’s airline was in operation.
The low pace of expansion of capacity by the airlines even in a year when the domestic passenger demand has risen an anemic 6 per cent is the reason for the high fares in the industry.
“Currently, average fares in the domestic sector are about 25 per cent higher than last year. We would see fares in the domestic sector rationalising, if airlines increase capacity (more). An aggressive capacity addition by the airlines would have offset up to 10 percentage points hike in fares,” said Sharad Dhall, president at Yatra.com, an online travel portal.
It is this shortage that eggs India based airlines to announce plans to buy or lease aircraft continuously with a target till 2024. The airlines need to ramp up their capacity to 1 million domestic seats a day which is four times more than the current 2,30,000 seats a day they are offering.
Read news in full 26/12/13 Mihir Mishra/Financial Express
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