Ticket fares to Gulf countries soar; NRIs, transit passengers hit
In a major blow to NRIs, the cost of air tickets from Gulf countries to Chennai, Kochi, Kannur in July have all skyrocketed, touching the upper limit of 3,000 Dhs (₹63,000). The return fare from Doha-Chennai is anything between ₹86,000 to ₹1.4 lakh, while Abu Dhabi-Chennai is going at anywhere between ₹24,000 to ₹40,000.
Dubai to Kochi in the first week of July will cost travellers anything from Dh1,440 (₹30,642) to Dh3,665 (₹77,998), while Dubai to Thiruvananthapuram is going at anywhere between Dh803 (₹17,08) to Dh2,967 (₹63,135).
Ticket prices have doubled for flights from Dubai and Sharjah to Kannur. Usually, tickets from Dubai and Sharjah to Kannur hovers at ₹20,000 but the prices have shot up to over ₹40,000 on July first week. According to a news report, travel agencies said that they usually increase fares around this time because schools in UAE close for summer vacations in July and expats usually make their annual trip to India.
Spike in demand
The fares which have all jumped to pre-COVID times, is largely due to the spike in demand on these routes, said news reports. In April itself, UAE’s Emirates airline said it was observing a 95 per cent seat factor on its India flights. “The demand is exceeding the current capacity offered,” Adnan Kazim, the carrier’s Chief Commercial Officer told Gulf News.
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The same report quoted from aviation data firm OAG that Mumbai-Dubai was the 6th busiest air route in the world in June with more than 200,000 airline seats. The 5th busiest being Dubai-Riyadh route, which saw 235,000 seats being deployed. The air route between New York and London was the highest with more than 280,000 seats.
Industry sources are surprised at the extent of travel demand from India, which is usually a highly price-sensitive market.
The reason for the demand
One of the reasons that the Gulf sector is so popular is because most Indian travellers use Dubai as a convenient transit stop to fly on to UK and Europe. However, the number of flights have not increased on this sector to meet the demand.
Moreover, most of the flights on this sector from India to Gulf countries are largely operated by foreign airlines, excepting of Air India and Indigo Airlines. Unlike foreign carriers, Indian airlines have limited services making matters worse. Air India needs to increase its flights to these destinations for the airfare to come down, said experts.
However, some experts pointed out that the airlines are behaving like cartels and fixing a higher fare. The government had thought the open sky policy will bring down prices but the opposite has happened. Meanwhile, travel agents felt that airlines have increased their fare because of the impact of oil prices. Further, they added that the demand was stemming from transit passengers and students from Chennai travelling to UK and Europe.
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Increase bilateral foreign flying rights with UAE
The Indian government needs to increase bilateral foreign flying rights with UAE to meet the seasonal surge in traffic, said a news report, which added that bilateral agreements were signed almost 15 years ago and since then the market has significantly grown.
The Airports Authority of India has told Indian carriers to increase their flights to Gulf countries and this is expected to happen within a month, when new widebody aircrafts will be introduced, said a report in a national newspaper.
In fact, Indigo and Air India have started new services from Kannur to Doha, Abu Dhabi and Muscat. Indigo has also started services to Bangalore from these Gulf cities due to the high demand.
