Fliers to and from Delhi Airport 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 percent.
Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL), the private aerodrome operator, had early last month announced the closure of one of the three runways for “preventive repairs” for 13 days, starting November 15. It also told the airlines to tweak their flight schedule accordingly.
On Friday evening, several travel portals showed a sharp rise in spot airfares.
There was an increase in fares from Delhi to Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chennai and other destinations for the next one week, especially (November 16-19).
For instance, while the fare for a Delhi-Bengaluru flight on normal days stands around Rs 11,044, for travel on Saturday (November 17), it stood at Rs 13,702 on average, according to the data by travel portal Ixigo.
Here are a few reasons why there is a hike in airfare:
- The cancellation of flights from the Delhi airport due to the closure of the runway (09/27) has led to an increase in fares for the next one week
- Another contributing factor is the high travel demand over the upcoming weekend
Besides 09/27, the Delhi airport has two more runways, 11/29 and 10/28 which remain operational. The three runways together handle 1,300 flights per day.
Tagged as the busiest airport in the country, the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) handled 63.5 million passengers in 2017-2018.
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