Domestic flights from Mumbai set to get cheaper by Rs 274
Mumbai Airport. Picture: Wikipedia Commons
Domestic fliers from Mumbai will no longer be charged a User Development Fee (UDF), following a revision of airport tariff by the Airport Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) on Thursday. The fee for international passengers has also been halved.
The UDF, which is a direct charge on passengers, is levied on the ticket price.
Currently, domestic fliers from Mumbai are levied Rs 274 towards UDF, excluding service tax. Under the revised tariff, the charge has been completely waived off.
For international fliers, Rs 548 was levied towards UDF, which has now been revised to Rs 227 (excluding service tax). The charge will be revised in the next two fiscal years.
The revised charges will come into effect from November 1.
While domestic passengers can expect some relief, some experts believe that airlines might hike the fares in the coming months to compensate for the increase in landing charges.
“Landing charges for A320s have been more than doubled for both domestic and international flights. The aerobridge charges for aircraft other than A320s have also been doubled or tripled based on size,” Amber Dubey, India head of Aerospace & Defence at KPMG told Business Standard.
“In effect, what has been reduced for passengers may be recovered from airlines. Given the cutthroat competition on the Mumbai routes, we feel airlines may absorb some of the increased charges and pass on the rest to the passengers,” he added.
