New Delhi: The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Friday said that domestic airfares were unlikely to go down to the 2011 levels any time soon.
However, it said, the fares may soften with a decline in demand.
The DGCA said that higher operational cost and airport charges were responsible for the higher fares, although insisting that they were still within the prescribed band.
The airfares this year have risen by more than 50 pc. The DGCA, however, says the rates are unlikely to fall anytime soon. The airfares this year have shot up by more than 50 per cent.
The cheapest one-way fare on the Mumbai-Delhi route till about last week was close to Rs 8,000. In 2011, the same ticket would have been in the range of Rs 5000.
Again, a one-way ticket on the Chennai-Hyderabad sector now costs around Rs 10,000, a steep hike over last year's rate of Rs 5,600.