New Delhi : Making a case for the capping of economy class airfares, which skyrocket during peak travel seasons and hit rock bottom in lean periods, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Mahesh Sharma said that “predatory pricing” by airlines is a “big issue” for passengers.
“A large section of the public and even parliamentarians have raised the issue that the airlines charge Rs 30,000-40,000 for a ticket when a passengers has to travel in some emergency,” Sharma said.
The minister’s comments came days after the Competition Commission of India (CCI) said it needs to get to the bottom of the issue of arbitrary airfare hike and cartelisation by the airlines after it received a compliant from a group of lawmakers in this regard.
Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju has on several occasions in the past said that putting caps and floors for airfares would have their own implications and that pricing should be left to the carriers to decide. Sharma said he, too, was against the lowering of airfares beyond a threshold.
He said that although, globally, airfares are unregulated, one business model cannot be replicated for all the countries and that the situation is different in each country when it comes to the pricing of air tickets.
