Indian budget carrier Indigo, GoAir and Air Asia have launched attractive flight discount offers and schemes for their passengers as the lean season draws near. Despite being troubled by rising fuel costs, high operational expense and rupee depreciation, the airlines have still decided to launch these offers to attract more and more fliers in the upcoming months. It’s notable that a lot of airlines in the last quarter have posted losses citing the reasons mentioned above, even Indigo, which commands the highest market share in terms of fliers, posted its lowest revenue. Even then, the situation hasn’t stopped the carriers from going ahead with these discount schemes. However, we think, for someone who might want to try their first flight, these Indigo Discounts seem to be the best deal whether you want to travel this year or in 2019.
IndiGo Discounts Offer Details
Indigo, under this new offer, is providing discounts on 10 lakh seats across its flights to 59 destinations including both domestic and international flights. The all-inclusive one-way fare for these discounted flights starts at Rs 999. To avail this offer from Indigo, passengers will have to book their flights well in advance between 3rd September and 6th September, which means that the sale which started on Monday will go on till Thursday and in this time period, people will be able to buy tickets for travel dates between 18 September 2018 and 30 March 2019, as per Indigo’s website. It is also worth noting that Indigo is providing this offer through all channels meaning that it won’t be necessary to book your tickets through the official Indigo website in order to avail the benefits of this offer. However, this offer will not be valid on Indigo’s group booking.
In addition to this discount on flight tickets, people who pay through MobiKwik wallet on the IndiGo website or app will get SuperCash worth 20%, up to Rs 600 and people booking with 6E Prime using HDFC Bank card will get Rs 800 off.
Air Asia Discounts Offer Details
Air Asia has launched a promotional discount offer on its flight books with domestic fares starting at Rs 999 and international fares starting at Rs 1,399. The routes which will come under this offer include that of Bengaluru, New Delhi, Kolkata, Kochi, Goa, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Pune, Guwahati, Imphal, Visakhapatnam, Hyderabad, Srinagar, Bagdogra, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar, Nagpur, Indore, Surat, Amritsar and Chennai, while discounts on its international routes include flights to Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Krabi, Sydney, Auckland, Melbourne, Singapore, Bali.
Notably, the Air Asia ticket sale is 8 days long and it kicked-off on September 2, for travel between 19 February and 26 November 2019.
GoAir Discounts Offer Details
Go-Air, a Wadia group subsidiary airline, has also put out a discount offer in this season wherein passengers can book domestic route tickets for a starting price of Rs 1,099 for travel period of 3 September 2018 to 31 March 2019. The discount offer has also gone live starting September 3.
As per a livemint report, analysts tracking the aviation sector said “Airlines are trying to increase demand with discounts,” they further added “Indian airlines, which are already operating in a price sensitive market, don’t have an option but to discount their tickets, especially if the market leader and others initiate a price war.”
Aloke Bajpai, travel and hotel booking website ixigo’s co-founder and chief executive officer said “Keeping in mind travel seasonality and the upcoming festivities, most of the airlines have announced their sales. As a result, we expect an immediate spike in flight bookings of about 18%.”
One airline which misses out from this list of carriers is Jet Airways. Being a luxury airline, undoubtedly, fliers would like to see some more offers and deals from Jet apart from the budget carriers. However, since Jet is planning to expand its fleet in the coming months, it's quite possible that the luxury carrier might rollout some offers when the Jet Airways' new routes and new flights are kick-started.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) had also predicted dwindling profits for 2018 in its last forecast. The Industry body revised its previous prediction of collective net profit of $33.8 billion in 2018 from the December 2017 forecast of $38.4 billion.
