Cyclone Dana and the Diwali rush have caused airfares to and from Calcutta to skyrocket.
Calcutta airport decided to close for 15 hours, from 6pm on Thursday until 9am on Friday, due to the cyclone’s potential to trigger crosswinds of up to 80km an hour. However, threat calls to 11 flights arriving and departing from the city caused delays, with the last flight taking off at 7pm, according to officials.
They stated that 309 domestic and international flights to and from Calcutta were cancelled due to the approaching storm.
The rush to leave or reach the city before the cyclone struck, combined with the scramble for rebookings by passengers whose flights were cancelled, led to airfares tripling or even quadrupling. On Thursday morning, a one-way ticket from Calcutta to Delhi was priced at ₹35,000, while the usual fare is around ₹8,000. A seat on a flight from Mumbai to Calcutta on Friday evening cost nearly ₹30,000, compared to the typical last-minute fare of ₹11,000, according to tour operators.
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Many passengers whose flights were cancelled were unable to secure seats for the next two days. Some had to take connecting flights to or from Calcutta, with stopovers in other cities. What would typically be a two- to two-and-a-half-hour direct flight turned into a six- to seven-hour journey for these travellers.
Yamini Mehta, a Park Street resident who had undergone surgery at a private hospital in Mumbai, was supposed to take an 8pm flight on Thursday back to Calcutta with her husband Manish and son Manan. The flight was cancelled due to the airport’s closure.
“We were booked with Akasa Airlines. The airline told us they would be able to rebook us on a flight only for October 29 because there are no seats on the flights before that,” said Yamini.
“So, we bought fresh tickets for an IndiGo flight that will depart at 8.10 on Friday evening. Each ticket cost us Rs 27,000.”
The family had initially purchased their Akasa tickets for ₹9,000 per passenger, one-way. However, with only two seats available on the IndiGo flight, their son Manan had to take a connecting flight from Mumbai to Calcutta with a stopover in Bangalore.
“The flight will take off from Mumbai at midnight on Saturday and reach Calcutta at 6am,” Yamini added.
Calcutta-based businessman Arindam Chakraborty, who had an IndiGo ticket for an 11am flight from Mumbai to Calcutta on Friday, was told that his flight had been cancelled. Although the airport was set to reopen by 9am, the preceding flight from Calcutta could not reach Mumbai before 11am.
“I have rebooked on an IndiGo flight from Mumbai to Calcutta that makes a stopover at Bagdogra,” Chakraborty said. He was scheduled to board the flight at 8am in Mumbai and expected to arrive in Calcutta around 3.30pm.
His daughter Aatreyee had to get to Delhi on Thursday for an exam on Friday morning.
“The one-way fare for the Vistara flight was Rs 35,000, which was exorbitant,” Chakraborty said.
Instead, he bought a ticket for an IndiGo flight from Calcutta to Chandigarh, with a connecting flight to Srinagar, from where his daughter would fly to Delhi. The total fare came to ₹19,000. She boarded her flight at 3.30pm from Calcutta, anticipating reaching Delhi by around 9pm.
“The cancellation of so many flights triggered a huge rush, which added to the heavy traffic for Diwali. This has pushed up airfares to levels that we usually see a day or two before Diwali,” said Anil Punjabi, a national committee member of the Travel Agents Federation of India, representing the eastern region.
“We have been flooded with phone calls for rebooking and fresh tickets since Thursday morning. Several people cancelled their travel plans because of the high fares.”
Sources from several airlines mentioned that the rush for rebookings caused their websites to malfunction on Thursday. As a result, many passengers were forced to call customer service and were left on hold for extended periods.
Also Read: Cyclone Dana Brings Moderate Rainfall To Northeast As It Makes Landfall
