Passengers flying locally within the country will now have to pay more for the Airline tickets, thanks to the increasing prices of crude oil in the global markets. Last year, the prices of crude oil and other global energy products had plunged to a record low, however, they seem to have recovered.
When we tried to do a little research on the flight ticket prices of some of the busiest routes in India, it became pretty evident that the trend of increasing Airfare started in November, which saw a little decline again in December. However, with traffic increasing for the months of January and February, the prices are again moving upwards. The decline in the Airfare had begun in 2015, after which there were a lot of passengers who switched to airlines, once the difference between the fare of trains and flights started to decrease.
Speaking on the development, one of the senior executives of a leading airline stated that the company has recently started charging an additional fuel surcharge on the tickets. Before it used to be anywhere between INR 100 to INR 300, however, presently it is being charged as much as INR 700 on some routes. He further added that the fuel is the biggest cost item in operating an airline in India.
Currently, only Jet Airways has increased the fuel surcharge, however, other airline companies are set to do that as well in the near future.