A stand-up comedian has renewed the conversation around domestic flight prices after claiming that air tickets from Delhi to Dubai cost him less than Delhi to Jaisalmer. London-based Ankit Grover said he was trying to book a trip from Delhi to Jaisalmer for his parents’ 50th wedding anniversary when he realised that the cost of air tickets had skyrocketed.
Instead of shelling out ₹31,000 per person for the domestic flight, Grover ended up booking tickets to Dubai which actually cost him less. He recounted the incident in an Instagram comment, a screenshot of which is currently going viral on X (formerly Twitter).
“Who is at loss?”
In his Instagram comment, Grover said he looked up tickets from Delhi to Jaisalmer and learned that they cost ₹15,000 per person. However, when he got down to booking the tickets a few days later, he was shocked to see that the price had skyrocketed to ₹31,000 per ticket.
Grover, who is an Overseas Citizen of India, did not specify when he looked up the prices.
Direct flights between Delhi to Jaisalmer are operated by Indigo and currently cost approximately ₹7,000. The price is even lower in February.
{{/usCountry}}Direct flights between Delhi to Jaisalmer are operated by Indigo and currently cost approximately ₹7,000. The price is even lower in February.
{{/usCountry}}However, Ankit Grover was met with an inflated price of ₹31,000 per ticket and decided to book tickets to Dubai instead, which cost only ₹30,000 per person. “Who is at a loss?” he asked, sparking a debate on domestic tourism being affected by high cost of living.
Social media users were surprised to learn that an international flight cost less than a domestic one.
“People are exploring the foreign trip because of same price range. Checkout the Goa state in new year, people prefer to go Vietnam or Thailand rather than Goa in same price range,” wrote X user Himanshu Gupta.
“Dynamic Pricing, that's how the industry works. Jaisalmer being a smaller airport would have less demand and hence costs more to operate, otoh there are multiple daily departures between Dubai and India. If you wanna get to Jaisalmer so bad, look at alternative methods,” another said.
The issue of rising cost of air tickets had earlier been raised by Congress spokesperson Shama Mohamed, who said that a flight from Delhi to Kannur had touched ₹22,000.