IndiGo Drops Fares, Sells Tickets Below Rs 800

Budget carrier IndiGo has lowered fares amid aggressive competition in the domestic airline sector ahead of lean travel season. India's biggest carrier IndiGo is selling tickets as low as Rs 745 on select flights. IndiGo's offer will end on July 4 and is applicable for travel between July 14, 2017 and March 24, 2018. The routes where IndiGo is selling tickets below Rs 800, according to its website, include Agartala-Guwahati (Rs 778), Jammu-Srinagar (Rs 745) and Srinagar-Jammu (Rs 799).

IndiGo on its website said the offer is valid only on non-stop flights from Agartala, Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Bagdogra, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Chennai, Coimbatore, Dehradun, Delhi, Goa, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Jammu, Kochi, Kolkata, Madurai, Mangalore, Mumbai, Patna, Port Blair, Pune, Srinagar, Thiruvananthapuram, Varanasi and Visakhapatnam. IndiGo did not disclose the number of seats available under the offer, saying that this offer is subject to availability.

A check on IndiGo's website showed the airline was selling tickets below Rs 750 for flights on the Jammu-Srinagar route early next month.Similarly, tickets on Delhi-Mumbai routes for travel later this month being sold for around Rs 2,100.The start of the lean season has led to a fresh round of discount ticket offering from airlines. Another carrier SpiceJet is selling tickets from Rs 699 on select routes. The SpiceJet offer will also end on July 4. Many other carriers including AirAsia India have also announced promotional offers to lure customers. Analysts say that the discounted offers from airlines will help support the passenger load factor for airlines in July-September season, which is typically a lead period for the travel season. Online travel portals have said low fares have spurred a strong interest from travellers for travel during the lean season.

Indian domestic market has been seeing strong growth over the past few years. The number of passengers carried by domestic airlines during January-May 2017 was 465.87 lakh as against 396.04 lakh during the corresponding period of previous year thereby registering a growth of 17.63 per cent, government data showed.