New Delhi : Poor passenger load factors in the past few months have once again forced low cost carriers (LCCs) to come out with limited period special fares offers to woo back passengers. While January 2009 saw a 14.2% decline in domestic traffic over last year despite reduced fares, the February figures – when fares went up – are feared to be worse.

While SpiceJet took the first step by introducing a limited period offer of “book for two, pay for one”, IndiGo, has responded by an offer of all-inclusive fares of Rs 1,600 and Rs 2,600 for journeys below and above 750 km. It hopes to see more fliers with its special offer of Rs 2,600 for an above 750 km flight like Delhi-Mumbai while the average full fare tickets cost well over Rs 5,500 (SpiceJet’s regular fare is a little less than this).

 

SpiceJet chief commercial officer Samyukth Sridharan said: “We believe this exciting offer will bring in more people to flying.” Airline CEO Sanjay Aggarwal had said last week that the 40% hike in fares from January to February had seen a 20% decline in bookings, while ruling out any early rollback of fares. “Fares have gone up by 40% from an average of Rs 2,300 in January to Rs 4,000 now. During this period, we have seen a 20% drop in bookings but yields have gone up by 17% per passenger due to higher fares,” Aggarwal had said. Full service airlines are yet to take any such step. “The load factors are very poor as both corporate and individual travel is down. We can’t have a low load factor along with low fares as that is recipe for disaster,” said a senior full service airline official.

 

The economic slowdown has led to a sharp fall in number of fliers. While February numbers are yet to be out, this January saw 33.76 lakh people flying within the country – 14.2 % down from last January’s figure of 39.39 lakh. Then airlines cited low load factors for hiking fares sharply in Jan-end as they said the industry expects to lose Rs 8,000-10,000 crore in this financial year.

 

“There is tremendous pressure on us to ask airlines to reduce fares as jet fuel prices are at a 4-year low,” said a senior official.