Fewer elders avail of discounted tickets …..Manju V I TNN
Mumbai: Till about three years ago, senior citizens would make use of their age to avail of 50% discount in full fare air tickets. However, over the last couple of years, the number of senior citizens who availed of their privileged discount on air tickets has fallen by as much as 90%.
According to statistics collected by the civil aviation ministry, in year 2005, as many as 75,570 senior citizens availed of this discount, which is given by the state carrier on its domestic air fare. The number went down to 26,162 in 2006 and further dipped to 7,745 in 2007. The reason for the decline? These discounts can be availed only on full fares, which can be as high as, say Rs 12,000 on say, the Delhi-Mumbai sector.
At first look its a surprising statistic, given the popular perception that senior citizens are taking to flights in increasing numbers, said an official from the ministry. We do not have data on the number of senior citizens who have flown without this 50% discount since 2005. It has to be a huge number, going up to several lakhs. But I can safely surmise that those who did not use the discounts have got better deals than what this discount would have given them, he added.
It seems the idea of 50% discounts on full fares for senior citizens has gone past its expiry date. In these times, when, say, a Delhi-Mumbai air ticket can be bought for as low as Rs 3,400 just minutes before the flight, there seems to be no queue for the 50% discount (on basic fare) given for full fares. For instance: Air Indias full fare ticket for a Delhi-Mumbai flight on August 1, 2008, is Rs 12,090 (taxes included). The basic fare works out to Rs 9,515 and so the total cost of the ticket after a 50% discount would come to Rs 7,332. By all probability, one could buy an Air India ticket for less than Rs 7,000 on the day of the journey, says the source.
The discount was introduced about a decade ago, in a bid to make air travel more accessible to the 60-plus population of the country (now available too on the domestic routes operated by the merged airline, Air India). Men above 65 years of age and women above 62 years can avail of this discount, which is only given on a full fare. The discount, say airline officials, worked fine during the times it was introduced as there were hardly any discounted fares those days.
Till about three years ago, about 80% of the tickets sold by airlines were full fares. Now it is the opposite, a majority of tickets sold by airlines are discounted fares, says an airline source, adding that the discounts were very popular when they were introduced, what with the elders making a beeline for the senior citizen identity card that helped them avail of such benefits.
The other reason for the declining popularity of these discounts is the fact that these it can be availed of only when the ticket booking is done directly with Air India. When you book your tickets through any of the travel portals, you cannot get this discount. We do not ask the age of the passenger during booking, said an official from a travel portal.