Flight fares go up as runway shut for repair at Delhi airport

Fliers to and from Delhi will have to shell out more as the closure of one of the three runways and high travel demand over the weekend have spiked fares by around 86 %, claimed an e-commerce travel website.

On Friday evening, several travel portals showed a sharp rise in spot airfares.

While a Delhi-Bengaluru ticket on normal days costs Rs 11,044, for Saturday it cost Rs 13,702 on average, according to flight data of ixigo.

One travelling to Mumbai from the national capital on Saturday would have to spend Rs 11,060 as against Rs 9,228 on normal days.

There was an increase in fares from Delhi to Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chennai and other destinations for the next one week, especially (November 16-19) due to the closure of one of three operational runways for repair.

Runway 27/09 has been closed for repairs for 13 days at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA), operated by DIAL. IGIA is the busiest aerodrome in the country and has three runways.

Its closure will lower the capacity of IGI Airport by 50 arrivals and 50 departures per day in this duration.

An official said that before the closure of the runway, airlines were informed in advance about it.

Ixigo's CEO and co-founder Aloke Bajpai said cancellation of flights from New Delhi airport, due to closure of the runway, had led to an increase in fares for the next one week.

"Another contributing factor is a high travel demand over the upcoming weekend. We have seen an average increase of 86 % in air fares for flights from Delhi to key routes, including Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Chennai," Bajpai said.

An average fare growth of 122 % has been recorded for Bengaluru-bound flight from Delhi. Similarly, a 57 % increase has been recorded for tickets to Hyderabad, ixigo said.

An airline official said the closure of one of three runways has impacted the operations of flights. The IGIA handled 63.5 million passengers in 2017-18 and has movement of around 1,300 flights every day.

Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL) is a consortium led by the GMR group. Other stakeholders are the government-owned Airports Authority of India (AAI) and Germany's Fraport.