The Civil Aviation Ministry Has Asked Airlines to Moderate Airfares
The Civil Aviation Ministry has asked airlines to regulate themselves and see that rates of tickets are reasonable; the Government has told the Rajya Sabha. The advisory has been issued against constant complaints about high air ticket prices, especially during peak travel seasons and festivals.
Minister of State for Civil Aviation Murlidhar Mohol said, “The ministry frequently meets the airlines to remind them to be ‘passenger-friendly’ in their pricing.” He noted that airlines have already been advised not to increase fares during natural disasters and calamities greatly. Emphasis has been placed that there will be no runaway airfares in times of disaster. Present regulations, however, do not allow the Government to fix or regulate the airfare since the Air Corporation Act was repealed in March 1994.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation has constituted a Tariff Monitoring Unit to monitor airfare trends. The TMU randomly monitors the airfare declared on select domestic sectors on the airlines’ websites every month to ensure that the declared tariff remains in the declared range.
