Fly on Tuesdays, Wednesdays to get lowest air fares

NEW DELHI: Mirroring a global trend, air fares in India are getting to be the cheapest during the middle of the week, when demand is at the lowest.

Passengers who flew on Tuesdays and Wednesdays in the period from March to July paid the least for their tickets, according to data compiled by online travel company MakeMyTrip.com.

The trend is based on the average air fare on select routes for each day of the month during the period (see chart).




Travel industry analysts said demand on these two days for most part of the year is the lowest and, hence, people can get the cheapest fares.

“There are two components here,” said Manoj Samuel, executive director of Riya Travels, one of India’s biggest offline travel agents. “One is of leisure travellers who generally travel on weekends and the other is of business travellers — a large number of whom travel during the first day of the week and then later return by Friday. Cheaper fares during the middle of the week is primarily due to these two reasons.”

An airline executive said this is a global trend and India is also moving towards it.

“Corporate bookings are generally flat but we have observed that major meetings are either on Mondays or on Fridays. This trend also indicates that the Indian market is behaving the same as global markets, which is a healthy trend,” said a senior executive of an airline that offers business class seats, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Makemytrip.com also said there was an increase in last-minute flight bookings this year from last year’s level.

Domestic aviation in terms of number of passengers flown in April-July has grown over 23% from a year earlier on the back of the lower fares as well as excess capacity.