Flying out of Chennai has become dearer with an increase in airfares now.
Earlier, flights from Chennai to various metro cities largely remained affordable and this helped many get back to their home towns ahead of lockdowns or travel during emergency. For instance, a one-way fare from Chennai to Bengaluru was affordable and was ₹1,700-2,000 but now has risen to nearly ₹3,300.
Similarly for Delhi, late last year, it was around ₹4,000 but now it has spiked to as high as ₹ 7,000 for a single trip. For travel from Chennai to Mumbai and Hyderabad, the fares have gone up to ₹5,500 and ₹4,000 respectively.
Officials of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) said most people were refraining from travelling because of the number of cases and the lockdown. “Last year too, the passenger traffic dropped drastically but picked up towards the end of the year. Because the fares were cheap, most people could easily take up air travel during the pandemic. But now people will think twice before they take a flight even after the situation improves due to high fares,” an official said.
This will result in a rather slow progress of passenger traffic, officials said. “It will certainly increase but the rate at which it will go up may not be as quick. It will take a lot of time, may be several months, before we see a good number of passengers,” another official said.
