Chennai tragedy: Airlines flood their coffers with extra money

Bengaluru, Dec 5: Even though entire India is shell-shocked after witnessing the sufferings of people in flood hit Chennai, the airlines in India are literally celebrating the calamity. Yes, this is the right time to loot the helpless people!

Chennai’s Anna International Airport was shut until Sunday after the operational area was submerged under seven feet of water. The stranded passengers headed by road to Bengaluru, Coimbatore, Tirupati and Madurai hoping to get to their destinations, only to cough up exorbitantly high rates for one-way domestic fares.

Fares from Bengaluru airport shot up to multiple times the normal last minute rates as incessant rains and floods brought the southern city to a halt and grounded passengers.

Here is a shocking screenshot of the Mumbai-Bengaluru flight fares appeared on flight booking portal makemytrip on Friday.

On flight booking portal Yatra.com, a one-way, non-stop ticket to Mumbai from Bengaluru for Saturday, December 5, 2015, ranged from Rs 19,119 on SpiceJet to Rs 41,560 on Air India.

Ignoring non-stops, ticket prices ranged from Rs 8,259 (Air India, one-stop at Hyderabad) to Rs 57,965 (Jet Airways, via New Delhi). The cheapest one-way, non-stop ticket to Delhi for the same day was quoting at Rs 17,538 (GoAir), going all the way up to Rs 28,269 (SpiceJet).

A family which had arrived in Bengaluru from Chennai, ended up paying around Rs 85,000 for a flight to Mumbai. The family of five, including a one-year-old toddler in tow, took a SpiceJet flight from Kempegowda International Airport here on Friday, after buying tickets from the airport counter.

Ministry intervenes

Meanwhile, the civil aviation ministry, which had warned airlines that it would intervene if the carriers didn't stop taking advantage of the situation, said that six low-priced flights would operate daily from the naval airbase in Chennai over the next two days to rescue stranded passengers.