Airfares send fliers back to trains

With airfares up by about 30 per cent since then, the retired government official has no choice. Today, a budget carrier ticket costs almost twice the second-class AC fare. Soubhik Mitra reports.

Paritosh Gupte bought a house within three years of getting a job. But he had to wait for almost three decades more to buy his first air ticket.

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That was in December 2007, when, at the age of 63, Gupte flew to Jaipur by Go Air, spending just a few hundred rupees more than the railways’ second-class AC fare.

But with airfares up by about 30 per cent since then, the retired government official has no choice. Today, a budget carrier ticket costs almost twice the second-class AC fare. “The government’s Sixth Pay Commission has increased my pension, but air tickets still exceed my budget,” Gupta said.

The number of first-time fliers, like Gupte, has dropped by about 30 per cent in the last quarter of 2008 from a year earlier, according to estimates of the Federation of Indian Airlines, a body formed by scheduled carriers, and the Air Passenger Association of India, a body formed by fliers.

“These are people who had moved to air travel after the low-cost carrier revolution,” said Anil Baijal, the federation’s secretary general, “Today, airlines are coming up with discounts to woo this segment back.”

That’s why Arup Ghatak, who runs a small factory in Bhiwandi, and needs to travel often to Ahmedabad on work, plans to stick to trains. A year ago, he had joined the ranks of first-time fliers. “Today, if I travel by air, it would eat into my profits,” he said.