By IANS,
New Delhi : India’s leading private carrier Jet Airways, which cut domestic fares by up to 40 percent last week, said it has no plans to slash fares on international routes.
“We don’t have any proposal right now to cut fares on our international routes,” Jet Airways spokesman A.K. Sivanandan told IANS.
An official of another airline expressed the same view, saying Indian carriers were unlikely to cut international fares as they already offer “competitive fares”.
“We already offer competitive fares on our international routes. Even when aviation fuel was at the peak levels, we offered the lowest fares on many international sectors,” the official, who did not want to be named, told IANS.
Three Indian operators – Air India, Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines – are operating on domestic as well as international routes.
The airlines are, however, looking at offering concessions and other incentive schemes on international flights like the ‘free companion travel’ announced by Jet Airways.
Besides Jet Airways, Kingfisher and Air India also announced fare cuts on domestic routes following downward revision of jet fuel prices.
While the state-owned Air India slashed fares up to 82 percent in at least 20 sectors, the UB group-owned Kingfisher announced a 21 to 65 percent fare cut on various routes.
However, airlines officials said low-cost carriers like IndiGo and SpiceJet were unlikely to reduce fares as their rates are already “lower” and comparable to other carriers now.