Flying to Singapore cheaper than making trip to Delhi

Airfares plunging on the southeast Asian, west Asian and south Asian sectors have made flying to these foreign destinations cheaper than air travel within the country.

Budget carriers Air Asia, Tiger Airways, Air Arabia, Air India Express (AIE) and others are offering fares as low as Rs3,000 per passenger from south Indian destinations like Kochi, Trivandrum, Chennai and Tiruchirappali to Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Penang.

For instance, Malaysian no-frill carrier Air Asia has come out with promotional offers that peg its fare at Rs3,169 between Kochi and Kuala Lumpur.

This is 41% lower than the lowest air ticket price on SpiceJet’s Delhi-Mumbai flight on March 26 of Rs5,374 plus taxes.

And it’s not just Air Asia which is offering discounted fares to push up demand. Its rivals are matching their fares to its offer.
V Chandrasekhar, senior manager (corporate communication), Air India, said his airline’s low cost subsidiary Air India Express, which flies to same routes as Air Asia and other overseas budget carriers was offering similar fares.

“We (AIE) have kept our prices at par with other low cost airlines to compete with them,” he said.

Deep Kalra, founder and CEO of travel portal MakeMyTrip said
fares have hit rock bottom in the past one month due to rise in low fare capacity on these sectors.     

“There is clearly pressure on fares on these routes because there is a lot more capacity on them today than a few months back. Many new flights have been launched on these sectors. Kingfisher and Jet have recently launched flights and they will be adding more. Air Asia and Tiger have also been putting additional capacity,” he said.

Kalra said the current fares are around 20% lower than what was being offered by an international flight operator during the same time last year. “These are promotional or introductory fares to spur demand on new routes but are intensifying price competition on the sector,” he said.