Team Herald
PANJIM: It’s the holiday season and visitors to the State are increasing. For a change, they are flying in paying reasonable fares, but the return home is burning a hole in the pocket.
With the Christmas-New Year week here, airlines are attracting air passengers by offering ‘cheaper’ tickets at certain booking periods, for a holiday in Goa.
Air fares to Goa are fluctuating at rates below Rs 5,000 from Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore, but fares for the departure from Goa are priced between Rs 7,000 and 10,000 during the early hours of the day, escalating to Rs 15,000 to 20,000 per passenger a little later in the day.
The cheapest return fare from Goa to Pune on January 1, 2018 is around Rs 8,336 that marginally reduces to around Rs 8,200 on January 2 and then sees a significant drop to Rs 5,111 the following day.
A flight to Bangalore is not as economical as one might have thought. The lowest fare from January 1 to 3 is around Rs 7,700, Rs 10,813 and Rs 3,795 respectively. Returning to Mumbai by flight is comparatively affordable as the lowest fare is Rs 4,900 on January 1, 2018. The rate, however, increases to Rs 6,552 on January 2, and then drops to Rs 4,372 on January 3.
Ironically, it’s not just the tariffs going up during the later hours of the day post the New Year eve but the traveling time to these shorter destinations also increases. For instance, the flight from Goa to Bangalore during the afternoon hours of January 1 costs above Rs 9,500 while the duration of the flight, between take off and landing, is 15 hours, as there are halts at Pune and Hyderabad. Another airline from Goa to Bangalore via Mumbai is charging Rs 10,000 approximately in the early evening hours, and the flight time is nearly four hours. This is unlike other days when the duration is little above 1 hour from Goa to Bangalore, on all flights.
Similarly, flying from Goa to Mumbai in the afternoon of January 1 would take 18 to 26 hours with fares per passenger ranging from around Rs 10,000 to over Rs 11,000. However, the duration of travel in the late morning and evening hours is either 1 hour or 1 hour 15-20 minutes.
The price of the tickets, however, keeps changing as till the time of going to the press, the rates on certain travel portals had increased by over Rs 500 on a few routes from Dabolim airport.
