K Rammohan Naidu asks airlines to ensure reasonable fares in festive season

Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu asked airlines to adopt best practices in passenger convenience and service quality

Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu on Friday held a review meeting with officials of airlines to assess their operational and technical performance, and asked them to keep airfares at reasonable levels during the festive season.

Representatives of Air India, Air India Express, IndiGo, Akasa Air, Alliance Air, Fly91, FlyBig and IndiaOne Air, among others, participated in the meeting. They presented their performance metrics, including action taken reports on security incidents and passenger grievances, according to an official release.

During the meeting with the airline representatives that went on for more than five hours, Naidu emphasised that they should strictly adhere to safety protocols.

The periodic meeting also came against the backdrop of two incidents involving Air India's Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft.

Naidu asked airlines to adopt best practices in passenger convenience and service quality.

"Detailed discussions were held with each airline on identifying bottlenecks in their operations and addressing their challenges," an official release said on Friday.

Amid concerns about airfares surging during festive seasons when there is more traffic demand, the minister told the airlines to ensure that airfares remain reasonable across the sectors during the upcoming festival season.

"Airlines assured that passenger convenience will remain their top priority and informed that additional flight capacities have been deployed on high-traffic routes to meet festive demand," the release said.

The civil aviation ministry's passenger grievance redressal portal, AirSewa, has been upgraded for enabling passengers to register complaints related to high airfares.

The minister has also directed aviation regulator DGCA that its Tariff Monitoring Unit should keep a strict vigil to ensure compliance with the tariff range declared by airlines.

At the meeting, grievance redressal was discussed, with airlines asked to qualitatively close passenger grievances in a timely manner.

Civil Aviation Secretary Samir Kumar Sinha, DGCA DG Faiz Ahmed Kidwai and other senior ministry officials also participated in the meeting.