The government has decided to cap the minimum and maximum fares for domestic flights for the next three months — until August 24 midnight. The domestic airlines have been permitted to take off from May 25 and will be allowed to operate one-third of the flights they had operated earlier.
“We have studied this (air fares). We have looked at corresponding rail fares. Right from the start, our objective has been that air travel should become affordable for all our citizens. I think we have set a realistic figure both in terms of lower and upper level. Affordability is one criteria; we are equally conscious of the fact that airlines operate on thin margins and that business models are based on high capital costs, and that they have costs because of aviation turbine fuel; we are trying to deal with all those things,” Hardeep Puri, Minister of State for Civil Aviation, said on Thursday.
