Amid the airlines dealing with Mumbai airport's six-hour shutdown due to runway maintenance, a one-way ticket to Delhi for this weekend is costing as high as Rs 40,000 for economy class.
The ticket-booking website MakeMyTrip.com shows the flight tickets from Mumbai to Delhi are costing anywhere in the range of Rs 9,000 to Rs 40,0000 for economy class for this Sunday. While an overnight Air India AI-9649 flight to Delhi costs about Rs 9,242 one-way, an early morning SpiceJet SG-160 flight costs Rs 9,903, the list of flights on the website shows.
Jet Airways' 9W-2929 costs as much as Rs 40, 139, while 9W-374 flight is charging about Rs 31,817, the list shows.
Airfares have more than doubled in the month of January due to the runway closure at the Mumbai airport which has led to cancellations of many flights. On a daily basis, Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Mahraj International Airport operates at least 950 flights, out of which 276 flights are expected to be cancelled daily till the runways are opened.
The airport, which is recarpeting a runway, has restricted flight movements between 11 AM to 5 PM every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday from February 7 to March 30.
The closure of the runways has shot up the economic airfares by almost 25-30 percent in the Delhi-Mumbai sector till the end of March, according to a survey by travel portal Ixigo.
"Last minute non-stop flights and stopover flights have been impacted the most, recording growth of over 200 percent in some cases," Aloke Bajpai, CEO, Ixigo said, was quoted by The Hindustan Times on Friday.
(With inputs from agencies)
