Indian students studying abroad continue to bear the brunt of travel restrictions imposed by India on scheduled airline international flights. The latest comes in the form of high airfares for return to India during the winter holiday around year-end.
With high demand and low supply, return airfare for travel to India from countries such as the US, the UK and Canada are currently priced about three times the pre-Covid fares, say, parents.
Other fares are expensive too. The cheapest available round fare on New York-Mumbai began at Rs 1.6 lakh and involved a Dubai transit and a 23-hour journey each way. The cheapest fares on non-stop return flights from New York to Delhi began at Rs 1.7 lakh. Similarly, for a Boston-Mumbai round trip, fares began at Rs 1.7 lakh while Chicago-Mumbai via Dubai was the cheapest option with fares at Rs 1.9 lakh. The cheapest return on London-Mumbai non-stop began at Rs 1.4 lakh on Air India, the cheaper fare for Rs 1.15 lakh involved a Dubai transit. Delhi has better non-stop connectivity, with Toronto-Delhi non-stop return priced at Rs 2 lakh and Chicago-Delhi non-stop returns at Rs 1.8 lakh.
Navin Bhatia (name changed on request), a parent who divides his time between the UK and India said he has decided to meet his children—one studying in Canada and the other in the US, that is—in Dubai this winter. “It’s a lot cheaper to fly to Dubai than to India from here in the UK,” he said. “I’ll try to do a round trip to India from there if the fares are better. Currently, a Dubai-Mumbai return for the last week of December is priced at Rs 65,700,” he said. Three weeks ago, he booked the tickets for mid-December travel and January return. A London-Dubai round trip in economy class cost Rs 80,000 while economy class fares on London- Mumbai began at Rs 2 lakh. His daughter’s Vancouver-Dubai return via Toronto cost Rs 1.4 lakh while his son’s Boston-Dubai return cost Rs 1.2 lakh. “Fares for travel this winter are at least three times the pre-Covid fares. In some cases they are even four times the year 2019 fares,” he added.
India suspended scheduled international airline flight operations on March 23 last year. Currently, international flight operations are carried out under ‘Air Bubble Agreements’ that India has signed with 28 countries that provide direct/indirect connectivity to over a hundred international destinations.
