Airfares For Outbound Travel From Chennai Soar After Cyclone Michaung
A flight to Hyderabad from Chennai on Tuesday cost Rs 16,000, which is nearly thrice the fare a week ago.
Spot airfares for travel from Chennai to major metro cities have soared two to three times compared with last week, after Cyclone Michaung disrupted people’s daily lives in the city.
According to data provided by online travel platform Ixigo, if a traveller booked a ticket one day before for a flight to Hyderabad from Chennai on Tuesday, he or she had to pay over Rs 16,000, which is nearly three times the fare a week ago.
Similarly, travel to Bengaluru from Chennai may have cost a person three times the ticket price a week ago. Meanwhile, travel to New Delhi would have cost twice as much as last week's price.
Airfares to Mumbai and Kolkata from Chennai were largely unchanged or fell slightly.
The Chennai airport’s operations were suspended on Monday till Tuesday morning due to adverse weather conditions after the landfall of Cyclone Michaung. The state government has urged people to stay indoors due to severe waterlogging after heavy rains.
After a triple train crash in Balasore, the Ministry of Civil Aviation had to issue an advisory to airlines to monitor the ‘abnormal surge’ in airfares to and from Bhubaneswar.
However, the aviation minister, Jyotiraditya Scindia, has frequently said that airfares are market-driven and not regulated by the government.
