Not fair! Indian budget airlines are the need of the hour

Not fair! Indian budget airlines are the need of the hour

Muscat: Prices of one way tickets from India have hit the roof, with Oman opening up its skies from Wednesday. Indian low cost airlines such as SpiceJet, Indigo and Go First (earlier called Go Air) are being kept away from service to Oman, leading to ticket prices skyrocketing — the cost of a one way ticket from Delhi to Muscat has crossed OMR500. This is really atrocious. Ordinarily, people have to shell out around OMR70 to OMR80 for this route. For a three hour flight people are forced to pay a fare that is at least five times higher so that they can come to Oman. Pre-COVID, carriers from both the countries could fly 27, 000 seats per week. But now, with seat availability being throttled to such low numbers, people are forced to fork out what is, for many of them, more than a month's salary. Compare this to the neighbouring countries, where budget airlines are allowed to operate, leading to far more affordable travel options for people. Why should expats on this side of the border pay so much more? Some people can argue that the stranded expats can come later once the prices of tickets fall. But