Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Sunday took to Twitter to express his anger after an Air India economic class ticket from Delhi to Thiruvananthapuram was priced at na inflated figure of Rs 34,853, that too for a later date.
Part of Tharoor’s tweet read, “Stop this disgraceful exploitation by a public airline!”
Economy fare of Rs 35,000 from Delhi to Thiruvananthapuram. Stop this disgraceful exploitation by a public airline! pic.twitter.com/2qNPMrZwQz
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) December 13, 2015During the Chennai floods when the airport was shut temporarily, the media reported some airlines were charging excessively for flights that were touching down or taking off from airports close to Chennai.
In those reports, the state-owned Air India was one of the flyers who were accused of exploiting the situation.
An Indian Express report quoted Iqbal Mulla, president of Global Tourism Council in Mumbai then saying, “Some airlines have doubled air fares for flights to cities such as Bangalore, Hyderabad and Coimbatore, which are not very far from Chennai.”
Tharoor is not the only one, many citizens too have been complaining of airlines increasing prices exorbitantly and especially in locations near Chennai.
However, Air India never responded to any of the allegations of wrong doing. Some experts believe air fares follow simple rules of demand and supply.
When a lot of people have to fly to a particular destination(and even more when they want to go to the same destination or area on the same date), airlines set their prices at a higher level.
Incidentally, there was public outrage as some people claimed that the ticket prices were inflated even though flights were running empty.
One Facebook user, Anupam Anand had written about how he had to pay Rs 22,000 for a Bengaluru-Delhi flight which usually costs around Rs 5000-7000 because of high demand, but he later found that half of seats were empty.