Aviation regulator DGCA has now allowed domestic carriers to roll out “zero bag” fares and charge penalty against check-in baggage for tickets booked under such an offer. <\/p>\n
At present all domestic private airlines except national carrier Air India allow a flyer to carry up to 15 kgs of check-in baggage without any cost. <\/p>\n
Air India allows its passengers to carry up to 23 kgs of check-in baggage free of cost <\/p>\n
“Airlines are allowed to offer no check-in baggage\/hand baggage only fare scheme subject to the condition that the penalty to be imposed on a passenger, who avails such schemes but turns up with baggage for check-in at airline counter, cannot exceed the amount of incentive offered compared to lowest fare,” Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said in its updated Air Transport Circular for unbundling of services. <\/p>\n
The circular was issued early this week. <\/p>\n
Reacting to the development, budget carrier SpiceJet, which had first rolled out such a scheme in June this year, said regulator’s move is in line with the changing trends in the industry. <\/p>\n
“We welcome this customer and environment friendly move, which is in line with the changing trends in the industry,” SpiceJet’s head of administration and Accountable Manager G P Gupta said. <\/p>\n
In June this year, SpiceJet had rolled out a scheme, offering a discount of Rs 200 to every passenger who books a flight with only one handbag and no check-in baggage. <\/p>\n
The offer, however, came with a rider that those who book tickets at discounted fares but later decide to carry check-in baggage would have to pay a fee of Rs 500 for up to 10 kg and Rs 750 for up to 15 kg baggage. <\/p>\n
As part of the unbundling of services, domestic airlines were allowed to charge from the customers for various facilities such as preferred seats, check-in baggage charges and use of lounges, by the regulator in April, 2015. <\/p>\n
In an air transport circular in July, which has now been superseded by the latest circular, the DGCA had said check-in baggage charges (above 15 kgs of free check-in baggage allowance) can be charged separately on opt-in basis as part of the unbundling of services. <\/p>\n
Three domestic carriers – IndiGo, SpiceJet and AirAsia India – had earlier approached the regulator with the “zero bag fare”, offering discount on no check-in luggage. <\/p>\n
The DGCA, however, at that time rejected the plea after the civil aviation ministry asked it not to allow such a proposal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Aviation regulator DGCA has now allowed domestic carriers to roll out “zero bag” fares and charge penalty against check-in baggage for tickets booked under such an offer. At present all domestic private airlines except national carrier Air India allow a flyer to carry up to 15 kgs of check-in baggage without any cost. Air India allows its passengers to carry up to 23 kgs of check-in baggage free of cost “Airlines are allowed to offer no check-in baggage\/hand baggage only fare scheme subject to the condition that the penalty to be imposed on a passenger, who avails such schemes but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[229],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-aviation"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41644\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}