Newly appointed Union Minister of Civil Aviation K Ram Mohan Naidu on Thursday, June 13 said that he will hold review meetings to address the rising cost of flight tickets. “Wherever I go, people have been mentioning that the prices somehow have increased over the last few years, especially after COVID. Our intention is to make air travel affordable to the common man,” he stated.
Ram Mohan Naidu took oath as a Cabinet minister on June 9, replacing the outgoing minister of BJP Jyotiraditya Scindia. In 2014 too, when TDP was part of the BJP-led NDA government, it was given the Civil Aviation portfolio. Addressing the media on Thursday, the new minister said that he aimed to make India the biggest domestic civil aviation market in the world. To achieve that, the prices have to be affordable, he added.
The Union government, in 2022, had decided to remove airfare caps, which was imposed after services resumed post Covid pandemic considering the daily demand and prices of air turbine fuel (ATF). The lower caps were imposed to protect the financially weaker airlines and the upper caps to protect passengers from high fares. According to reports, the fare for flight tickets on major domestic routes such as Kolkata-Bagdogra, Delhi-Bengaluru, and Delhi-Mumbai have seen a year-on-year increase of up to 12.7% as of May.
The stock prices of two major Indian airlines, IndiGo and SpiceJet, took a hit in February 2024 after a parliamentary panel recommended implementing route-specific capping of airfare. The proposal also included the establishment of a distinct regulatory body to oversee and manage air ticket prices, responding to mounting customer grievances regarding escalating airfares.