Rush at an IndiGo counter

NEW DELHI: Govt on Saturday reimposed airfare caps — for the first time after Covid — as the IndiGo crisis has sent ticket prices defying gravity on other airlines. The aviation ministry says it has “ taken a serious note of unusually high airfares being charged by certain airlines during the ongoing disruption” and that it has “invoked its regulatory powers to ensure fair and reasonable fares across all affected routes” to “protect passengers from any form of opportunistic pricing.” These caps will be in force till IndiGo operations are back to pre-crisis levels, something expected by Dec 15 now as govt has kept new flight duty norms for pilots — that are meant to improve flight safety — on hold to enable the airline to get back on its feet.This development may have come way too late for lakhs of passengers who had IndiGo tickets for travel from earlier this week when the airline started cancelling hundreds of flights till mid-December when IndiGo expects to normalise operations. These passengers had to cancel their IndiGo tickets and buy on other airlines like Air India, AI Express, Akasa and SpiceJet at sky-high fares. Geeta Srivastava (names changed on request), for instance, had bought Delhi-Udaipur-Delhi tickets for Rs 11,000. While she travelled Delhi-Udaipur on Friday (Dec 5) on some other airline, she was forced to cancel her IndiGo Udaipur-Delhi ticket of Sunday. “I have bought Udaipur-Delhi ticket on another airline for Rs 24,000. Of what use is the govt directive. Throughout this crisis, the aviation ministry has been nothing but a mute spectator. Their statements during the IndiGo crisis bear no resemblance to ground reality at airports” fumed Srivastava.There are lakhs of passengers like her in this peak travel season who have suffered the same fate as Srivastava. The math is against passengers: IndiGo has almost 65% domestic market share. This peak season, before the crisis, was seeing over five lakh daily domestic flyers. Post the crisis and till IndiGo operations are back to normal which is expected by Dec 15, almost vast majority of travellers are chasing the remaining 35% domestic share airlines. With such a demand-supply mismatch, fares have zoomed.The aviation ministry said in a statement Saturday: “An official directive has been issued to all airlines mandating strict adherence to the fare caps that have now been prescribed. These caps will remain in force until the situation fully stabilises. The objective of this directive is to maintain pricing discipline in the market, prevent any exploitation of passengers in distress, and ensure that citizens who urgently need to travel — including senior citizens, students, and patients — are not subjected to financial hardship during this period.”“The ministry will continue to closely monitor fare levels through real-time data and active coordination with airlines and online travel platforms. Any deviation from the prescribed norms will attract immediate corrective action in the larger public interest,” the ministry added.IndiGo used to operate over 2,200 flights daily. On Friday it cancelled over 1,000 and this number is expected to gradually reduce over coming days.