{"id":52780,"date":"2025-12-02T10:33:25","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T10:33:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=52780"},"modified":"2025-12-02T10:41:52","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T10:41:52","slug":"indias-sky-high-fares-crash-dreams-to-make-flying-accessible-to-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=52780","title":{"rendered":"India\u2019s sky-high fares crash dreams to make flying accessible to all"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Al Jazeera:   <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Salman Shahid travels frequently between Srinagar, the biggest city in Indian-administered Kashmir, and New Delhi. He runs Rise, a private coaching centre for students aspiring to join the Indian Institutes of Technology \u2013 the country\u2019s premier engineering schools \u2013 in Srinagar, but his family is based in New Delhi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Flying helps him save time. But increasingly, he just cannot afford it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Shahid says, a one-way flight from Srinagar to New Delhi would cost him about 3,300 rupees ($37.20) on average. \u201cNow, the same ticket is over 5,000 rupees ($56), and that, too, with very limited time options,\u201d he points out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This 50 percent surge in airfare has significantly affected his travel routine. \u201cI don\u2019t travel that frequently now,\u201d he says. \u201cEarlier, I would make at least four round-trips a month. Now, it\u2019s come down to just two.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He recalls once booking a ticket for just 1,700 rupees ($19) on Vistara, a domestic airliner, during a sale in 2019. \u201cThat kind of pricing now feels like a dream,\u201d he says, adding that he struggles to understand how airfare has escalated so sharply in such a short period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He is not alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aci-asiapac.aero\/media-centre\/news\/international-airfares-remain-high-notable-increase-in-key-domestic-markets-aci-asia-pacific-and-middle-east\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">study<\/a>&nbsp;published last November by Airports Council International (ACI), a global trade association representing more than 2,000 airports in more than 180 countries, India saw a 43 percent rise in domestic airfares in the first half of 2024, compared with 2019, the second-highest in the Asia Pacific and West Asia regions after Vietnam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>International fares also rose by 16 percent. India was third in this category. A&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.business-standard.com\/india-news\/india-tops-airfare-spike-in-apac-west-asia-study-shows-research-123061201130_1.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">study<\/a>&nbsp;representing 617 airports in the Asia Pacific and West Asia regions, conducted by ACI in partnership with Flare Aviation Consulting, a management consulting boutique specialised in the aviation and airports sector, attributes this surge to high demand, limited competition on some routes, and a 38 percent spike in aviation turbine fuel (ATF) costs since 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Al Jazeera: Salman Shahid travels frequently between Srinagar, the biggest city in Indian-administered Kashmir, and New Delhi. He runs Rise, a private coaching centre for students aspiring to join the Indian Institutes of Technology \u2013 the country\u2019s premier engineering schools \u2013 in Srinagar, but his family is based in New Delhi. Flying helps him save time. But increasingly, he just cannot afford it. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Shahid says, a one-way flight from Srinagar to New Delhi would cost him about 3,300 rupees ($37.20) on average. \u201cNow, the same ticket is over 5,000 rupees ($56), and that, too, with very&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52784,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52780"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52782,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52780\/revisions\/52782"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/52784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}