 "airfare, air ticket, air price")
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s (DGCA’s) demand for airlines to submit granular, ticket-wise data on airfares for the past two years flies against the trajectory of the Indian aviation industry over the past three decades. It has raised afresh the spectre of regulated airfares, which could ground the sector. The regulator has denied such plans; it has said the objective of seeking such detailed data is for analysis. This explanation does not fully outline the purpose of such an “analysis” but it does suggest a misunderstanding of the basic mechanics of airlines’ competitiveness.
Ever since the concept of low-cost
