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MUMBAI: The month of April with its generous list of public holidays has seen domestic airfares shoot up for travel during the coming two long weekends. After the pandemic, India’s domestic passenger traffic breached the 4 lakh flyers per day mark for the first time during the 2022 mid-April long weekend. This April, too, crowds are expected to throng airports during the coming consecutive long weekends.
What is different this time, is that airfares are comparatively pricier than last April, indicating higher demand. But the broader trends remain the same. Cheapest fares on offer are those on metro-to-metro routes; the cheapest fares from metros to popular leisure destinations are those for flights that depart late at night or in the small hours of the morning. Fares on flights with convenient timings cost almost double than the cheapest fare and from metros such as Mumbai and Delhi, the most expensive flights continue to be for destinations such as Srinagar, Leh, Kochi, Dehradun, Mangaluru and Tirupati, among others. Also, the Covid booking trend seen in 2020, 2021 and early 2022, which had passengers book tickets a few days before travel, has firmly been relegated to the past.
Goa, the most popular short holiday destination, is expectedly in high demand. For travel from Mumbai during the coming Easter weekend, the cheapest return fare on Thursday started at Rs 10,000. But it was on a flight that landed in Goa at 11.30pm while the return flight departed at 12.15am. On flights with convenient timings, departure from Mumbai at 11.25am and return flight departure at 1.15pm, the fare was Rs 32,500. But for the Ambedkar Jayanti long weekend (April 14-17), fare for convenient flights is currently priced at Rs 17,500.
“The Good Friday long weekend saw a 167% increase in booking demand compared to last year,” said an OYO spokesperson, adding that beaches and religious tourism are in demand. Indiver Rastogi, president, Thomas Cook (India) and SOTC Travel, said they had witnessed a three-fold rise in travel demand for the consecutive extended weekends in April (including Mahavir Jayanti, Good Friday, Ambedkar Jayanti and Eid al-Fitr). When compared to March, airfares on popular routes — from hubs like Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru to Chandigarh, Srinagar, Dehradun, Kochi, Goa and Port Blair — have witnessed a 20-60% surge during the long weekends of April, which is indicative of appetite for holiday traffic and migrant working population travelling home for short breaks, he said.
Rajesh Magow of MakeMyTrip said the top 10 most booked destinations remain consistent, led by Goa. “In domestic packages, we have seen a 54% increase in average room nights booked this year over the corresponding period in 2019,” Magow added. Aloke Bajpai of ixigo said airfares are higher than pre-Covid levels. “Despite February and March being weak months, we have seen an unprecedented demand for these months due to festive travel and we expect even higher traffic for the summer season.”
What is different this time, is that airfares are comparatively pricier than last April, indicating higher demand. But the broader trends remain the same. Cheapest fares on offer are those on metro-to-metro routes; the cheapest fares from metros to popular leisure destinations are those for flights that depart late at night or in the small hours of the morning. Fares on flights with convenient timings cost almost double than the cheapest fare and from metros such as Mumbai and Delhi, the most expensive flights continue to be for destinations such as Srinagar, Leh, Kochi, Dehradun, Mangaluru and Tirupati, among others. Also, the Covid booking trend seen in 2020, 2021 and early 2022, which had passengers book tickets a few days before travel, has firmly been relegated to the past.
Goa, the most popular short holiday destination, is expectedly in high demand. For travel from Mumbai during the coming Easter weekend, the cheapest return fare on Thursday started at Rs 10,000. But it was on a flight that landed in Goa at 11.30pm while the return flight departed at 12.15am. On flights with convenient timings, departure from Mumbai at 11.25am and return flight departure at 1.15pm, the fare was Rs 32,500. But for the Ambedkar Jayanti long weekend (April 14-17), fare for convenient flights is currently priced at Rs 17,500.
“The Good Friday long weekend saw a 167% increase in booking demand compared to last year,” said an OYO spokesperson, adding that beaches and religious tourism are in demand. Indiver Rastogi, president, Thomas Cook (India) and SOTC Travel, said they had witnessed a three-fold rise in travel demand for the consecutive extended weekends in April (including Mahavir Jayanti, Good Friday, Ambedkar Jayanti and Eid al-Fitr). When compared to March, airfares on popular routes — from hubs like Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru to Chandigarh, Srinagar, Dehradun, Kochi, Goa and Port Blair — have witnessed a 20-60% surge during the long weekends of April, which is indicative of appetite for holiday traffic and migrant working population travelling home for short breaks, he said.
Rajesh Magow of MakeMyTrip said the top 10 most booked destinations remain consistent, led by Goa. “In domestic packages, we have seen a 54% increase in average room nights booked this year over the corresponding period in 2019,” Magow added. Aloke Bajpai of ixigo said airfares are higher than pre-Covid levels. “Despite February and March being weak months, we have seen an unprecedented demand for these months due to festive travel and we expect even higher traffic for the summer season.”
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