For much of commercial aviation's history, ticket prices rewarded travellers who committed to a booking well in advance, while those who held off until the days just before a flight typically faced steeper costs at the gate. Domestic carriers in India have been holding fares at elevated levels well ahead of travel dates, a pattern that puts that previously established pricing advantage at risk of eroding.
For travellers looking to fly between Delhi and Mumbai the following day, quoted economy one-way prices on that corridor stand at ₹6,200 with Akasa Air, ₹6,500 with IndiGo, and ₹6,900 with Air India. Fares at that level extend to February 2027 departures as well — tickets that, only months prior, were widely priced at around ₹3,800.
IndiGo and the Air India group together hold around 95% of the domestic aviation market — roughly 70% and 25% respectively — a concentration that leaves Akasa and SpiceJet competing for the margins as fare structures across the industry continue to shift. Reduced airline capacity on domestic Indian routes, paired with a narrowing field of carriers, has put downward pressure on the availability of discounted advance-purchase tickets.
Manoj Samuel, who leads Mumbai-based Riya Travel and Tours India — a firm whose corporate travel portfolio extends to blue-chip technology clients — characterised the shift in revenue management practice as a pattern playing out across the domestic market. Round-trip fares to Bangkok are on offer at ₹26,000. According to Samuel, reduced capacity across the board has eroded the advantage that travellers once gained by booking ahead of time.
Seat reductions at IndiGo and a restrained growth posture at Air India have left domestic aviation capacity tighter than either carrier's network would otherwise allow. Jet fuel costs running more than 30% above the previous year's level have left carriers uncertain about how long that expense burden will hold, a reality the revised pricing structure is partly designed to absorb.
Fare pricing set well in advance remains largely unconstrained in the Indian aviation sector, where a handful of carriers face little incentive to undercut one another. Over the seven years spanning those events, two carriers — Jet Airways and Go First — ceased operations, while Vistara and AirAsia India were absorbed into the Air India group, leaving travellers with a narrower set of airline options than before.
Ticket revenue generated per seat on domestic routes has climbed, figures show, even without any expansion in the number of seats being flown. IndiGo's revenue per available seat-kilometre climbed by more than half following the exit of Jet Airways from the market, according to the airline's own published figures. From a RASK of 3.7 recorded during the summer of 2018, that figure has climbed to 5.66 at its most recent reading.
Revenue per available seat-kilometre is what the airline metric RASK captures, dividing total passenger and ancillary income by the number of seat-kilometres an operator puts into service on any given route network.
One former airline executive at the leadership level, who was not identified by name, put forward the view that capacity shortfalls entering 2027 could push ticket prices upward for passengers. Domestic aviation capacity shrank from roughly 3,200 departures per day to somewhere between 2,800 and 3,000, a contraction driven by higher fuel costs and tightened airspace access.
Without the upward pressure that fuel costs have placed on aviation, the winter timetable might have accommodated more than 3,400 departures and arrivals each day, a volume that would have drawn ticket prices downward for travellers. Persistently high fuel prices add a layer of difficulty that sits apart from any diplomatic outcome, leaving the path toward restored capacity blocked on more than one front.
