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Airlines misguiding people, forcing passengers to pay more, says Parl Panel
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IANS | 18 Mar, 2023
A Parliamentary Standing Committee has taken note of the high air fares
charged by some airline operators in the domestic sector, and held that
they are misguiding the public and forcing passengers to pay more.
The Committee also pointed out the wrong information
published by the private airlines on their websites, regarding the
number of seats left in the flight and the prices of the tickets.
"The
level of misinformation can be gauged from the fact that even after the
last tickets have been sold, the same number of seats show on the
website, as indicated before the tickets sale. This indicates that
airline operators are misguiding the public and forcing passengers to
pay more," the panel said in the Demand for Grants (2023-24) report of
the Civil Aviation Ministry.
In view of the above, it recommended
that the Ministry should formulate appropriate guidelines regarding
rationalisation of fares and publishing the correct information on the
website of the airlines.
It also pointed out that 'Predatory
Pricing' is being restored to by the domestic airlines sector. "A
particular airline may sell its air tickets at such a low level, that
other competitors cannot compete and are forced to exit the market. A
company that does this will see initial losses, but eventually it
benefits by driving competition out of the market and raising its prices
again," said the report.
The Committee desired to know whether
aviation regulator, the DGCA had at any point of time intervened to
check the fares of air tickets. It also expressed concern at the fact
that in the domestic sector, private airlines are charging different
fares for the same sector, route and same direction of flights.
This
is specifically so for the northeastern region and hilly areas
including Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, where the prices of domestic
sector tickets are, sometimes, even more than the international airline
sector prices.
The Committee took note of the fact that after the
repeal of the Air Corporations Act, 1953, the airfare is market driven
and depends on market fares, and is neither established nor regulated by
the government. "It notes the DGCA's comments that the airfares were
regulated for a fixed period during the Covid pandemic in compliance
with Aircraft Act, 1934 and the regulation was withdrawn as the Covid
pandemic abated and that airlines are free to fix reasonable tariffs
under the Aircraft Rules, 1937, with regard to cost of operation,
services, reasonable profit and generally prevailing tariff," said the
report.
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