Ensure airlines do not practice predatory pricing: Parl panel tells govt

A Parliamentary panel on Monday asked the civil aviation ministry to cap the upper and lower levels of airfares, and ensure that predatory pricing mechanism is not adopted by the airlines under the cloak of free market economy.

"A perfect balance has to be maintained between the commercial interest of the private airlines and the interest of the passengers so as to enable the private airlines to grow and at the same time the interest of passengers should also be kept in mind, so that they are not fleeced in the garb of commercialisation," the panel said.

The recommendations have been made by the Department -related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture in its report on the ministry's demand for grants for 2023-24.

Among others, there have been complaints about sudden surge in air ticket prices during peak travel seasons.

The committee also observed that presently the surge in airfares does not reflect any sort of mechanism on part of the ministry to ...