Two Indian Airlines and Singapore Airlines announced low fares

To attract summer holiday traffic like Air India did, two Indian airlines and Singapore Airlines announced low air fares and special schemes. A discount of up to Rs 500 per return-trip being announced by Spice Jet under a special scheme, Jetlite also did the same on Wednesday by keeping the fare as low as Rs 4170, excluding passenger service fee and the development fees charged by certain major airports.

Air India on Monday announced advance purchase fares, available on 35 domestic sectors; of Rs 2494 one way if booked 20 days in advance and Rs 2694 if bought 10 days before travel. A ‘Fabulous Singapore Stopover’ package for USD one only for the first night stay in Singapore is offered by Singapore Airlines, together with the Singapore Tourism Board and Singapore Changi Airport. Exclusive deals on hotel stay, airport transfers and entry to some Singapore’s leading tourist attractions are some of the things covered in package.

A new base fare of Re.1 introduced by Jetlite

As all Indian Airlines are hiking the base fares Jetlite introduced a base fare of Re.1 as a promotional fare. The fare is applied on some of Metro cities flights as well. Meanwhile Jet Airways also announced Rs.300 base fare on the flight routes to major cities. The fares will be effective from 30th April’09. Jet Lite introduced its promotional base fare as it heard about other airlines withdrawing the promotional base fares.

All airlines including Spice Jet, Indigo, Kingfisher and GoAir had a hike in their base fares; they all are now concentrating on earning revenues rather than seat factors. It was assumed that there will be a hike of Rs.1800 to Rs.2000 on the flights from Mumbai to Delhi. Air India in response to withdrawal of promotional fares said that the response was not upto the expectations, so they decided to discontinue with the promotional fares.

Economy class ticket in Just Rs 99 – Air India

Air India recently declared its economy class fare price which is Rs 99 and is valid for the month of February only. This offer will also continue after February for the one who books a ticket 21 days in advance. The Business class travelers can enjoy the scheme till February end under which the passenger’s spouse is allowed to travel by paying only the fuel surcharge and the airport user development charge. Air India was lead by Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines last year in flight bookings.

The civil aviation Ministry released its data depicting Jet Airways as India’s largest domestic air services handling a market share of 29.5 percent followed by Kingfisher Airlines handling a market share of 27.6 percent market share. Air India is only handling a market share of 16.3 percent after Jet and Kingfisher airlines which has immensely effected the business of Air India this is the reason why the airlines is introducing new schemes this month.

Oil companies strike affect airlines

The state-run oil companies proposed strike from 7th January’09. 55,000 officers of 14 Oil companies announced strike on 6th January’09 which is definitely going to affect the airlines. In response Jet airways said “Jet airways and JetLite flights will not be affected by the strike and flights will be operated as per normal schedule”, Kingfisher airlines said they were already prepared to deal with the situation, Air India too said this strike won’t affect their daily flight operations.

On the whole the airlines pretend that they are not being affected by the oil companies strike but somewhere an impact will be seen in the flight operations due to this strike as the time passes by.