The Indian government has done what authorities in most market economies would rarely dare to try — it has forced Indian carriers to slash domestic airfares by as much as a quarter, and to publish fare ranges on every route on their websites regardless of travel dates. While helping consumers is admirable, is New Delhi crossing a line?
Angered by the pricing policies of India’s airlines, including low-cost carriers IndiGo, SpiceJet and GoAir, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) gave them an ultimatum last weekend to lower fares or face severe consequences, the Indian press reported. Within hours, fares dropped between 20 and 25 percent.
On Monday, the DGCA ordered airline chiefs to start posting on their websites at the beginning of every month fares on specific routes with advance-purchase requirements of 21, 14 and seven days before departure, as well as last-minute prices.
“We just want everything to be made public, including giving DGCA the parameters of number of seats getting sold and fare moving to next higher level. In case of any sudden jump, we will be able to check if lower bucket fare seats have been sold, and then spot fares are at the highs or is it something else,” DGCA chief E. K. Bharat Bhushan was quoted as saying by the Times of India.
This column has been critical of several dishonest and manipulative practices in the airline industry, including misleading fare advertising. Transparency is essential in an era of ever-growing airline fees and heavy fuel surcharges. In October, I wrote about new ways some carriers have found to overcharge unsuspecting customers.
It’s well-known that Indian domestic fares had become ridiculously high, but was such a drastic government intervention necessary? The DGCA plans to micromanage airline fare-setting and inventory, which will effectively end dynamic pricing, the very essence of today’s industry model.
“In case of any sudden jump to the highest fare level, the DGCA will be able to check if the spurt is due to seats at lower price levels having been sold out or whether it is manipulation by the travel industry,” the Times of India wrote on Tuesday.
The U.S. Department of Transportation will be happy if American carriers advertise actual fares on their websites — not $200 to Europe each way, based on a required round-trip purchase, when taxes and surcharges bring the total price to $800. But an attempt by DOT to follow India’s examples would probably lead to a revolution.
Related stories:
Airlines find new way to overcharge fliers
When an airfare sale is not quite a sale
Fare sales often lost in translation
DOT should ban fictitious flights
Continue reading about Is India going too far in curbing airfares?
The United States has made new concessions as part of its civilian nuclear agreement with India, further angering arms control advocates, while New Delhi has yet to make it possible for U.S. companies to benefit from the unprecedented deal.
In the most recent accord completed late last month, Washington agreed to Indian demands to increase the number of plants allowed to reprocess U.S.-supplied nuclear fuel from one to two, with the option of another two if India’s needs grow in the future.
At the same time, India thus far has failed to pass legislation that would release U.S. companies from liability in case of accidents related to equipment they have provided for two reactors expected to be built under the 2007 U.S.-Indian Nuclear Cooperation Agreement. That effectively prevents those firms from starting businesses in the South Asian country…
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How many times have you been jerked around at an airport and made to wait in several long lines after a flight delay or cancellation forced a change to the rest of your itinerary? Chances are, that happened abroad. For all their faults, U.S. airlines handle irregular operations better than their foreign peers.
I’ve always wondered why airport agents in the United States — whether at check-in counters, gates or even business lounges — can do almost anything a passenger needs, including rebooking, rerouting and reissuing tickets, while agents in other countries are much more specialized, and thus less helpful.
Rather than make sense of that reality, I’ve found a way to work around it: Whenever possible, I make sure that my tickets are issued by a U.S. carrier. That doesn’t mean that I don’t fly on foreign airlines — in the era of code-sharing, global alliances and other partnerships, that limitation is no longer an issue…
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How would you like to fly to Australia in Qantas Airways’ luxurious first class on its new Airbus A380 aircraft for $1,200? You could actually buy such a ticket last week, but as regular readers of this column might have guessed, that was yet another case of a mistake fare.
Just like 2009, the new year began with a major airline making an error when filing a fare, and then deciding not to honor the issued tickets. As I wrote last January, Swiss International Air Lines published a $300 business-class fare from Toronto to several European and Indian cities. In November, British Airways filed a $560 round-trip coach fare from the United States to India.
On Wednesday, it was American Airlines’ turn. A frequent flier noticed that the $1,200 fare from Los Angeles to Sydney, which is typically an economy price, now booked into first class — not even business. Similar fares were available from other U.S. cities…
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The practice of one airline selling seats on another carrier’s planes with its own flight numbers has been around for years, and many travelers are familiar with the term “code-sharing.” Yet even experienced fliers continue to be surprised by what amounts to false advertising.
It’s holiday time, and I’d love to write columns about how seamless and hassle-free travel is — which is true for me in most cases — but I keep hearing from readers about questionable airline behavior. In the latest example, LACSA, Costa Rica’s national airline, may have misled some customers.
Lance Cygielman, a travel agent from Jackson Hole, Wyo., wrote me after reading my column about British Airways’ refusal to honor fares from the United States to India it said had been published by mistake last month…
Continue reading about Hidden perils of airline code-sharing
