Passengers on their way to board a flight at Patna airport. Telegraph picture

Patna, May 20: The special fare scheme of Air India (AI), introduced to boost ticket sales, has done the trick for the airlines, as it carried more number of passengers for the period between May 7 and May 19.

Sources said the three daily AI flights on the Patna-Delhi route carried 250 passengers on an average during this period.

“Usually, AI flights have a 50 to 55 per cent occupation. However, during the scheme period, the average occupation of the flights was 80 per cent,” an AI official told The Telegraph.

In the special fare offer, a Patna-Delhi ticket was available for as low as Rs 4,785. Those who booked a month in advance were able to get tickets to Delhi for Rs 2,585.

AI employs an 80-seater Airbus 320 aircraft for the three Patna-Delhi flights. In summer, the airlines can increase the number of seats to 140, albeit subject to a load penalty.

Business class travellers had accepted the “customer’s choice” with alacrity.

“As AI offers full-service flight on this route and the respective fares are offered at below-normal rates, the passengers are bound to get attracted, said the owner of a travel agency.

However, travel agents suspect that business would be back to normal for other airlines.

“Although AI did good business in the past few days other airlines would capture the market soon, as AI fares are comparatively higher than other airlines including GoAir and Indigo,” said an employee of another travel agency.

The claim of the travel agency employee seems to be accurate as the occupancy on the three AI flights came down to 225 today.

Private operators, on the other hand, claimed to have done normal business even during the AI scheme period.

“AI, Jet Airways and Kingfisher have a mutual agreement to endorse passengers in case of any trouble with any of these airlines. Thus during the AI pilots’ strike there was a mad rush of passengers to book seats in our flights and we sold tickets at Rs 13,000. Once the strike got over, Kingfisher normalised its fares. Our flights are flying with 90 per cent to 95 per cent occupation,” said an official of a private airline.

He also said as the wedding season and summer vacations have set in most flights on the Patna-Delhi and the Patna-Mumbai routes are booked chock-a-block.