The Indian government is thinking about introducing an analytics tool that will provide travelers with future ticket price trends. This is a step towards addressing the lingering concerns that travelers face because of steep fluctuation in airfares. The government’s proposal is being considered by the civil aviation industry. The proposal will additionally help in ensuring more transparency, as air ticket prices are generally driven by supply and demand metrics.
The country’s domestic aviation market has been projected to be the world’s third largest by 2022. The ministry is also working on a project, which ensures seamless and paperless travel for the passengers, starting right from booking an air ticket. This proposal is part of the ‘Digiyatra‘ initiative. The project aims at providing airline travelers a “digitally unified flying experience.”
Historical data analysis as well as “price curves with predictive data analytics” will help passengers project future airfares and efficient price discovery. Moreover, passengers can plan their trip more efficiently by making use of the historical data analysis and trends for airfares.
Furthermore, the ministry is also looking at creating a “civil aviation data repository“. Such an analytics tool would first require a reservoir of data collected from airlines, airports, and travel portals. Analytics tool for airfares is one of the ideas that have been discussed by the ministry with aviation industry stakeholders last week.
Airlines usually follow a dynamic pricing mechanism for the tickets that is mainly dependent on demand trends. Currently, many travel portals provide information on future airfare trends. Steep variations in air ticket prices, especially during natural calamities and festival seasons, have often been a matter of debate in various quarters.
Civil Aviation minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju mentions that strategies for additional capacities have to be brought in place because additional capacities will bring down prices. Data with the Ministry proved that average airfares declined 18 per cent in 2016.
