Airfares to get dearer as lower limit hiked by 5 per cent

Just a month back, the Centre had increased the lower and upper limits on domestic airfares by 10-30 per cent due to rising ATF prices.

Air travel is set to become a little expensive as the government has decided to increase the lower limit on airfares by five per cent amid rising aviation turbine fuel (ATF) prices, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Friday.

The upper limit on airfares will remain as it is for now. Just a month back, the Centre had increased the lower and upper limits on domestic airfares by 10-30 per cent due to rising ATF prices.

While announcing resumption of scheduled domestic flights in May last year, the Aviation Ministry had placed limits on airfares through seven bands classified on the basis of flight duration.

The first band consists of flights having less than 40-minute duration and its lower limit has been increased to Rs 2,310 on Friday. The lower limit for the highest band of flights having duration of 180-210 minutes was further hiked to Rs 7,560.

“There has been a continuous rise in price of ATF so it has been decided to increase the lower fare band by 5% keeping the upper fare band unchanged,” Puri tweeted. “We may open the sector for 100% operations when daily passenger traffic crosses 3.5 lakhs on 3 occasions in a month.”

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