Airfare Alerts: How To Know When Flight Prices Drop

Travel search marketplace Ixigo has introduced a flight booking feature, called "fare intelligence", which enables its users to find the best possible prices. Ixigo monitors price drops and past trends to notify users whether to book a flight or wait, the portal said in a press release on Thursday. "Now know when to book a flight at the cheapest price with fare prediction & alerts," said Ixigo. The new feature is available on Ixigo's website and app, it noted.

Citing a study, Ixigo noted that the chances of the current flight fare being the best on first search are generally about one-third. In the other two-third cases, users would have benefited by waiting to book, it added.

The company has come up with the fare prediction feature which derives the best future date for one to book their flight. "For instance, if there are chances for a flight's fare to go down by say Rs 950 over the next 3 days, Ixigo will prompt the user to wait," the travel search marketplace further said in its statement.

A double-digit growth seen in air passenger traffic over the past few months has led to increased competition among airlines.

Ixigo also keeps track of a user's preferred travel sectors and sends them a fare alert as soon as the fare drops, it said. "For instance, if one is looking for a flight from Delhi to Mumbai for the 10th of May and the current fare is Rs 2,700, if the fare drops to Rs.2400 the next day, Ixigo will immediately send out an alert to notify the user via mail & push notification."

"We're really happy to launch a feature that not only helps our users make pocket friendly travel bookings but also doesn't push them into making hasty purchase decisions," Ixigo CTO and co-founder Rajnish Kumar said.

Domestic air passenger traffic surged nearly 15 per cent year-on-year to 90.45 lakh in March, data from aviation regulator DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation) showed.

Currently, Ixigo's fare prediction is available only on domestic flight searches for travel up to 30 days in the future. Launched in 2007, Ixigo connects over 80 million travellers with content and deals from over 25,000 online and offline travel and hospitality businesses, Ixigo added in its release.