Upsetting the Ramzan travel plans of Non-Resident Keralites (NoRKs), airlines have hiked the fares five to six times from destinations in West Asia to the three airports in the State.
The increase in fares by airlines based in West Asia and India, including Air India and its low-cost arm Air India Express, is to cash in on the demand among NoRKs for seats during the festival season and closure of educational institutions for summer vacation in the Gulf.
The fare hike has hit workers who depend on the budget carriers for their travel back home. Many NoRKs are finding it difficult to fly down to Kerala with their family in view of the hike in fares.
Seats, especially in the sought-after economy class, are not available in the majority of the airlines during the weekend.
Those who want to be with their kin for Ramzan back home will have to get seats at an exorbitant rate.
Travel trade sources said it was for the first time that the carriers were resorting to such a hike during this period as during the Onam season.
It is estimated that the airlines make ₹10,000 crore annually in the sector.
The hike in fares has hit expatriates, a sizeable number of them from Kerala, in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Bahrain, Muscat, Doha, Kuwait, Jeddah and Kuwait. Those skipping direct flights and proceeding via Sri Lanka will have to pay more.
CM’s meet in vain
The airlines have resorted to the hike only weeks after Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan convened a meet of Chief Executive Officers of airlines in the presence of Union Civil Aviation Secretary R.N. Choubey for a solution to the arbitrary airfare hike in the sector during peak season.
President of the Kerala Travel Agents Association K.V. Muralidahran said the NDA government had also preferred not to control the fares allowing the airlines to have a free hand.
