Guwahati, July 2: Passengers flying in and out of the Northeast can breathe easy about the impact of GST on air fares.

"Prices of flight tickets for travelling to and from airports in the Northeast will be unaffected by the GST rollout as the region is exempted from it," an official source in Air India told The Telegraph. "The increase in tax on business class air tickets from 9 per cent to 12 per cent from yesterday in the rest of the country will not affect travellers to and from the Northeast."

"GST has not been made applicable for journeys originating or terminating in an airport in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura and Bagdogra in Bengal," he added.

The exemption applies to/from the airports in Dibrugarh, Guwahati, Jorhat, Lilabari, Silchar, Tezpur, Imphal, Shillong, Aizawl, Dimapur, Agartala and Bagdogra.

Travellers embarking on a journey originating or terminating in the airports of Srinagar, Leh and Jammu in Jammu and Kashmir have also been exempted from paying the GST.

"This basically means the Northeast will continue to enjoy the exemption under GST, which it had earlier availed of in the form of service tax exemption since 2010-11," the source said.

DoNER minister Jitendra Singh recently said the northeastern states would benefit from the GST rollout and obtain an opportunity to realise fiscal growth in tandem with the more developed states.

Passenger airlines operating in the region are Air India, Alliance Air, Jet Airways, Go Air, Spicejet, IndiGo and Air Asia. Pawan Hans Helicopters Ltd provide helicopters services in the region with subsidy from the Centre. There are 22 airports in the Northeast, of which 11 are operational.