A plea was filed in the Delhi High Court for capping airfares across the country so that customers are not fleeced arbitrarily by airlines. The PIL urged the court to direct the authorities to frame “guidelines so as to put a cap on airfares and prevent the private airlines here from charging arbitrarily, irrationally and exorbitantly for air flights“.
Advocate Amit Sahni, in his plea, which is likely to be heard next week, stated that he had filed an RTI application seeking information regarding airfares and Ministry of Civil Aviation replied that these are not controlled by the government.
Citing recent Jat agitation in Haryana, which reportedly forced some passengers to pay over Rs. 90,000 for their journey, the plea said if there would have been a cap, the airlines could not have charged such huge amount.
“The private airlines companies have fleeced people even in emergent situation and the government has stood as a mute spectator regarding the same,” the plea said, adding there is “urgent need to regulate the upper limit of airfares so that the private airlines could not fleece their customers as per their own wish.”
Capping of airfares in the backdrop of the passengers complaints of arbitrary tariff hikes was recently ruled out by the government which had said competition among airlines would take care of the problem.
The ministry had reportedly said restricting the airfares will not make good business sense as it could also jeopardise the government’s regional connectivity plan as such a move may discourage airlines to fly on non-profitable routes.— PTI
The Ministry of Civil Aviation had reportedly said restricting the airfares will not make good business sense
