Government Will Look Into Air Ticket Pricing Practices!

The Competition Commission Of India(CCI) has announced that it will asses the algorithms used by domestic airlines on the ticket pricing. This is being done to check as to why there is a sharp rise in airfares during peak demand.

CCI is the governing body which keeps a check on unfair business practices across different sectors.

They started investigating when the issue of sharp rise in air ticket pricing came to light during the Jat agitation in early 2016. Rail and road connectivity were severely affected by this incident because of which, ticket prices on Chandigarh to Delhi flights shot up sharply.

At a conference organized by The Associated Chambers Of Commerce of India(ASSOCHAM), CCI chairperson D K Sikri addressed this matter. Here’s what he had to say –

• Secret/collusion cooperation between digital players with the help of self-learning algorithms is one of the biggest challenges the CCI faces.
• This issue caught the CCI’s attention when there was a sudden rise in airfares for flights between Chandigarh and Delhi during the Jat agitation.
• When they asked the airlines about this issue, the airline officials said that the algorithms were driving up the prices and they had no clue as to why this was happening.

At the conference, Mr. Sikri also highlighted the fact that algorithms are not systems that are developed on their own and that somebody has put logic into its design.

CCI is in talks with technical experts to understand the indicators & variables used and the weightage given by the algorithm used by airlines. The governing body is looking to develop its own algorithm to look into this issue but that will require a huge investment.