Airfares for economy flights to Delhi from Sydney on Qantas are around $4,700 return per passenger if you are planning to travel in the next month.
An Indian-Australian family looking to get 4 adult tickets to visit loved ones in India needs to have over $20,000 just for the airfares.
Other airlines are close to these price levels, with Air India demanding $4,500 for a similar ticket departing Sydney on 15 Dec 2022 and returning 8 Jan 2023.
Looking for cheaper tickets? You’ll still need to pay around $3,000, and be ready for a 35-hour journey on Scoot/Thai/Indigo to make the annual pilgrimage back to India.
It seems that $1,200 return tickets to India are well and truly a thing of the past.
For Indian families who have not seen their loved ones for the past three years due to COVID travel restrictions and international shutdowns, it is a rude shock to find the current ticket pricing. More so for the thousands of Indian students on limited budgets, for whom this is a heavy price to pay.
Those who manage their travel pricing through accumulated reward points on Qantas and Singapore Airlines are not faring any better. What used to cost them 90,000 points is now costing half a million points. It could take them years to be able to afford even one economy class ticket to India.
If you are planning a short break from Sydney to Melbourne or vice versa or even the Gold Coast during the holiday period, the 1.5-hour flights can cost up to $400 each way, such is the demand for airline tickets.
It seems that the consumers will simply have to bite their teeth, buckle up and take off, as airfares continue to go skyward.
High fuel prices, fewer flights, smaller workforce, and increased travel demand post pandemic have all been cited as reasons for these exorbitant prices.
Yet the airlines are not willing to put on more flights. They’d rather keep supply down so that demand increases.
Not that the airlines are showing much sympathy. Qantas has just announced a huge profit upgrade. For the 6 months to December 2023, analysts have been expecting a profit between $350 million and $600 million, but Qantas has surprised them by saying the actual profit could be closer to $1.35 billion-$1.45 billion.
With interest rates and mortgage repayments rising, at some time the consumers will have to rethink their plans for national and international travel which can then force the airlines to push down prices.
It is not going to be the smoothest of Christmases and the happiest of New Years for families on limited budgets who want to go visit their parents or loved ones in India.
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