Spot airfares soar on early booking offers

Flyers might have loved the constant discounted fare schemes being dished out by airlines this year. But now, the flipside of this practice has come to haunt them. Passengers booked months in advance to grab cheap tickets, leaving very few seats for spot bookings. As a result, spot fares this festive season saw the last available seats going for very high prices Nifty Trading Tips

The biggest impact of this new trend was seen on Delhi-Mumbai flights for Wednesday (November 5). Buying a ticket on Tuesday for flying this route on Wednesday meant shelling out between Rs 15,600 and Rs 19,000 on low-cost carriers. Full-service airline fares were a jaw-dropping Rs 24,500 to Rs 26,400 in economy class. The business class fare was in the Rs 30,314-Rs 43,000 range. Intraday Trading Tips

"A large number of north Indians are going back to join work after the Diwali/Chhath holiday on Wednesday after taking an extended break with Muharram (a holiday) being on Tuesday. This had led to the spurt in spot fares," a senior airline official said. Free Share Tips

Travel portal Yatra.com president Sharat Dhall said spot fares this festive season have been higher than last year. Regular flyers say they have had to shell out spot fares as high as Rs 27,000 for flying one-way on Delhi-Mumbai route since the start of peak travel season last month. Delhi-Kolkata spot fares were also as high as Rs 12,000-15,000, said a travel agent. 

Low-cost carrier SpiceJet had proposed a solution to the problem of expensive last-minute fares — bought by people mainly in an emergency like some crisis in family or job interview. It had sought the aviation ministry's nod to offer "restricted non-changeable, non-refundable" fares. These would be at least half of spot or last-minute fares and "saleable at any time". 

SpiceJet COO Sanjiv Kapoor had written to the aviation ministry this summer, saying, "Airlines would benefit from this as well as flyers, who would be able to get much better fares even at the last minute, if they are willing to accept the restrictions that come with it.... it is in no one's interest to fly aircraft with empty seats.  Commodity Trading Tips