Air India has deployed wide-body Boeing 777-300 aircraft on the busy Delhi-Mumbai-Delhi sector to create additional capacity to deal with rising demand during the ongoing festive season and to counter high airfares from private airlines.
It has also put larger aircraft on the Delhi-Dubai-Delhi sector and to Goa to bring in more supply in these key sectors during the Christmas and New Year celebration period. The additional flight and larger aircraft will operate till mid January, 2015.
This is the first time in recent years that Air India is operating additional flights and changing aircraft during this period to come to the ‘rescue’ of passengers, who are made to pay exorbitant fares during the peak tourist season, according to an official of the airline.
Problems at SpiceJet had caused shortage of capacity in the market, and the government-owned airline was only trying to bridge this gap, the official added.
Meanwhile, the Central Government is believed to be considering putting a cap on airfares for the benefit of air passengers. Domestic airfares have gone up in the range of 30-40 per cent in the past few days since SpiceJet has plunged into crisis.
The Boeing 777-300 ER with 342 seats will operate on the Delhi-Mumbai-Delhi sector once in a day. In addition, flight AI 887/666 operating with A-321 aircraft with 182 seats on the Delhi-Mumbai and Mumbai-Delhi sector will be extended to Goa till January 15, 2015. For Dubai, Air India had deployed Boeing 777-300 ER and Boeing 777-200 LR with 238 seats, replacing the existing smaller aircraft temporarily, to cater to the additional demand during the forthcoming Dubai Shopping Festival, officials said. These aircraft, which were normally deployed in the India-U.S. and India-Europe routes, were available for deployment in short haul routes during the day and the airline was making best use of it, officials added.
“Airlines are increasing capacity by deploying larger aircraft on key sectors, especially the metro routes and holiday destinations, as this is one of the busiest travel periods in India. We feel that it will also lead to a slight softening of air fares that had skyrocketed in the last few days,’’ John Nair, Head, business travel, Cox & Kings, said.
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