Soon after Cyclone Vardah settled and operations were restored at the Chennai airport, one-way airfares syrocketed to as high as Rs 30,000 from Delhi.
According to Times of India report, Delhi-Chennai one-way fare on a non-stop flight on a low-cost carrier was around Rs 30,000 while on a full service carrier it was Rs 31,200.
Cyclone Vardah made landfall in Chennai on Monday afternoon due to which the city airport was shut until Tuesday.
The report says that Aviation secretary RN Choubey has asked Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to probe the issue of the spike in airfares.
A SpiceJet spokesman in a conversation with Mint said that they had protected all the passengers already booked with them and the few remaining seats must have been priced at a higher cost.
Jet Airways on Tuesday said it will re-accommodate all passengers stranded due to cyclone Vardah free of cost and expects situation to spring back to normal in the next five days.
“We are very clear, we will ensure that every stranded passenger who had to get in or get out, will be taken care of by Jet Airways — that means we will re-accommodate them subsequently. More importantly, this won’t come at any price. This will be absolutely free,” the airline’s vice president commercial (India), Praveen Iyer, said.
(With inputs from PTI)
(Feature image source: Reuters)