International passengers are forced to pay through their noses to get an air ticket to reach home during festival seasons and vacations with airlines, both low-cost and full-service ones, hiking the fares every peak season.
Already, the airfares to various West Asian countries from the State and vice versa have been ruling exorbitantly high. What’s more, now there is no a major difference in the fares of low-cost and full-service airlines, though the low-cost no-frills airlines were meant to offer affordable budget travel.
In some cases, fares on a good number of low-cost international flights are either equal to or higher than those on full-service airlines. For instance, a Delhi-Dubai full-service airline ticket on Etihad Airways is available at ₹11,538 on July 30 whereas the low-cost Air India Express and IndiGo charge ₹13,428 and ₹15,516 respectively on the route the same day. A Thiruvananthapuram-Dubai flight of Air India with one stop on the same day will cost ₹11,849 while a budget Air India Express ticket costs ₹26,649 on the route the same day.
