Slump in domestic air fares boosts bookings seven-fold

BANGALORE: After three Indian carriers -- Jet Airways, IndiGo and GoAir --dropped their domestic fares in the last 24 hours, air ticket bookings have shot up almost seven fold over the previous week, said multiple online travel agents.
A one-way all-inclusive regular price Bangalore-Chennai air ticket for travel on Friday is going at Rs 4,316 per person on SpiceJet, which hasn't yet dropped its fares, whereas Jet Airways is offering the same ticket at Rs 4,800 all inclusive for two people. IndiGo is offering the Bangalore-Chennai ticket at Rs 2,141 all-inclusive per person.
On the high-traffic Bangalore-Mumbai route, the fare differential between airlines that haven't reduced their fares and airlines that have is a whopping Rs 3,000 per ticket.
"In the last two days, traffic on our website has shot up between 5x and 7x over the previous week," said Keyur Joshi, co-founder & COO, MakeMyTrip. He added that as of Wednesday sales of airline tickets had doubled as compared to the last week.
Till about a week ago, passengers were burdened with soaring air fares, which had seen a 25% to 35% increase over the same period year ago.
"All routes connecting metro cities are seeing growth in bookings of 4x and 5x in just under 24 hours," said Sanjay Bhasin, MD of Goibibo.com.
Data shared by Jackson Fernandez, GM at Wego India, a global online travel metasearch engine showed that in the last two days, the number of clicks Jet Airways received online has increased by 140% and by 75% for IndiGo. But while the air fare war may have enthused travellers, not all passengers are being able reap the benefits of air tickets at throwaway prices. A Bangalore-Chennai one-way ticket priced at Rs 2,200 all-inclusive was last seen in December 2008.
Thirty-three-year old media consultant Shweta S, has been trying to log on to Jet Airways' website to avail of the airline's special fare tickets, but her efforts in the last two days have meet with complete disappointment. "Each time I've tried booking it says server busy. And its just not me, as three of my colleagues have also been trying and haven't been able to book," said Shweta.
Online travel agents (OTAs) are of the opinion that while they're equipped to handle a sudden 10x spike in online booking demand, airline websites don't have the technology in place to handle such demand surges. And despite the technology available with OTAs, the surge in air ticket bookings on Tuesday and Wednesday did pose a challenge to some, as airlines dropped their fares overnight with no prior intimation.
"Typically, airlines have to inform OTAs at least three to four hours in advance if they are lowering fares, so that we can gear up to handle the increase in traffic," said Bhasin of Goibibo-.com. The difficulties that OTAs face are primarily with the global distribution system operators that airlines tie up with.