Air India offers air tickets matching AC train fares

The national carrier has priced the tickets closely with AC train fares

Air India launched from Wednesday a 60-day advance purchase fare scheme to woo holidaymaker by offering prices that are close to air-conditioned train fares.

The advance purchase fare (Apex) tickets are available for sale on various routes and customers can travel from the middle of May, the airline said in statement.

This latest Air India (AI) offer comes on the heels of the cash-strapped national carrier announcing 30-day and seven-day special fares recently.

The Apex scheme targets vacation travellers during the peak holiday season, luring them from train to air travel and is also an attempt to strengthen AI foothold in the leisure travel market, an Air India spokesperson said.

The national carrier has priced the tickets close to AC train fares. An all-inclusive 60-day advance purchase fare on the Delhi-Mumbai sector would cost Rs 3,981 while on the Delhi–Lucknow route it would cost Rs 2,562. A first-class AC train ticket from Delhi to Mumbai on the Rajdhani would cost about Rs 4,000. A first-class AC ticket on the Lucknow Mail superfast would cost around Rs 1,600

Air India has announced an all-inclusive Mumbai-Kolkata fare of Rs 4,556, Mumbai-Bangalore Rs 2,930, Delhi-Chennai Rs 4,852, Delhi-Kolkata and Delhi-Hyderabad Rs 4,012. Kolkata-Hyderabad and Kolkata-Chennai would cost Rs 3,798, according to airlines.

The scheme is likely to invigorate a price war among the airlines, after budget carrier SpiceJet, in January, and Jet Airways, last month, came up with low-priced tickets. Chennai-based SpiceJet was the first to slash airfares, after the prices sky-rocketed during the winter holidays, by introducing fares as low as Rs 2,013 in January, forcing rivals to roll out similar schemes.

Weeks after SpiceJet, full-service carrier Jet Airways too put up two million seats on the domestic network up for sale as low as Rs 2,350 and IndiGo, GoAir and Air India too responded with similar offers.