The government on Saturday imposed airfare caps ranging from ₹7,500 to ₹18,000 to contain the ticket-price hike triggered by the IndiGo flight cancellations, while regulator DGCA issued a show-cause notice to the airline for its lapses.
The civil aviation ministry directed IndiGo, which cancelled over 800 flights on Saturday — after scrapping close to 2,000 over the past four days — to clear all pending passenger refunds by Sunday evening. The airline has been told not to levy any rescheduling charges on cancellation-hit passengers.
The DGCA asked IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers to explain why action should not be taken against him for failing to ensure reliable operations and requisite passenger facilities.
It said that prima facie, IndiGo seemed not to have complied with the crew-rostering norms and failed to make adequate arrangements for the smooth implementation of the new Flight Time Duty Limitations. It sought a reply from Elbers within 24 hours of receiving the notice.
The fare caps apply only to domestic flights. The cap is ₹7,500 for distances up to 500km, ₹12,000 for travel between 500km and 1,000km, ₹15,000 for 1,000-1,500km, and ₹18,000 for distances beyond 1,500km (such as the 1,760km Delhi-Chennai flights).
These figures exclude the user development fee, passenger service fee and taxes on the air tickets. There are no caps on business-class or the already-subsidised UDAN fares. The fare caps will remain in force until the situation stabilises, the civil aviation ministry said.
Hundreds of passengers, left stranded at various airports by the IndiGo flight cancellations and facing long hours of uncertainty, have in their desperation been shelling out exorbitant sums to other airlines.
Many have taken to social media to vent their frustration on the steep rates being charged by Air India, SpiceJet and Akasa, sharing screenshots that show some airlines demanding ₹1 lakh for a Delhi-Calcutta flight.
In some instances, air tickets that generally cost between ₹5,000 and ₹7,000 have been selling at ₹50,000 to ₹80,000.
“Ticket prices for domestic flights have become ridiculous. Simple weekend routes now cost more than international trips,” an X user posted.
The government has warned the airlines that failure to adhere to the fare caps would attract immediate action.
“The objective of this directive is to maintain pricing discipline in the market, prevent any exploitation of passengers in distress, and ensure that citizens who urgently need to travel — including senior citizens, students, and patients — are not subjected to financial hardship during this period,” the aviation ministry said.
Reacting to the social media posts and the government’s fare caps, Air India and Air India Express clarified that they had since December 4 capped economy-class fares on non-stop domestic flights to prevent the revenue management systems applying the usual demand-and-supply mechanisms.
“We are aware of screenshots of last-minute itineraries with one-stop or two-stop flights or a combination of economy and premium economy or business cabins taken from third-party platforms,” Air India said.
“It is not technically possible to cap all such permutations, but we are engaging such platforms to exercise oversight.”
Unusual airfares have been noticed also in ticket bookings by SpiceJet, which has deployed 100 additional flights to ease the chaos at the airports.
IndiGo said it was treating customer refunds as a priority. It added that it was working closely with all airports and partners to ensure timely updates to customers at terminals, on websites, and via direct notifications.
“Today, the number of cancellations has dropped below 850 flights, much lower compared to yesterday. We’re continuing to work towards reducing this number progressively over the next few days,” IndiGo said.
The airline, which claimed to have operated a little more than 700 flights on Friday, spoke of some early signs of improvement.
“Today, we are on our way to operate over 1,500 flights by end of day,” an IndiGo spokesperson said.
“With regards to destinations, over 95 per cent of network connectivity has already been re-established as we are able to operate to 135 out of the existing 138 destinations….”
IndiGo and aviation ministry officials met in the evening.