Thiruvananthapuram: With demand for flight tickets peaking during the ‘puja’ festival season, airline companies are out to fleece travellers booking their tickets from Thiruvananthapuram airport. In fact, tickets for domestic flights from the Kerala capital cost around five times that from Kochi.
The difference is most acute on the Bengaluru route. Indigo Airlines, which operates flights to Bengaluru from Thiruvananthapuram, is charging over Rs 10,000 on Sunday, when the festival holiday ends, for direct flights. Meanwhile, ticket fare on the flight via Hyderabad leaving on Sunday was shown as Rs 13,486 on Thursday morning on the booking websites. At the same time, the fare for the Bengaluru service departing from Kochi at 6.40 am on Sunday was a mere Rs 1,759.
The steep fares have holiday visitors from Bengaluru planning a return trip from Thiruvananthapuram fuming. Incidentally, there are only two services to Bengaluru from Thiruvananthapuram even when there is heavy demand. Apart from Bengaluru, ticket fares are exorbitantly high on the Thiruvananthapuram to Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai routes also.
Adani’s challenge
It is also pointed out that the biggest challenge before the Adani Group, which has taken over the Thiruvananthapuram Airport recently, would be the high fares charged by airline companies. According to aviation experts, as the Adani Group is planning to conduct more domestic services from Thiruvananthapuram to various destinations in the country, it may have to rein in the fares to attract sufficient travellers in order to enable proper development of the airport.
