Air passengers allege fare shock amid shutdown, curfew

Lutfar Rahman (not his real name) was taken aback when airlines asked him to pay more than double the regular fare for travelling from Dhaka to Syedpur on Saturday.

The private job holder visited ticket counters of all four airlines which operate flights on domestic routes and each of the companies demanded the same fare. Finally, he bought three tickets – for himself and two of his family members – from Air Astra which had flight at the nearest time at Tk11,500 each.

"Usually, we buy a ticket for Tk5,000 to Tk6,000. But this time, we had to pay almost double," said the passenger, while sharing his frustration with The Business Standard.

Not only on the Dhaka-Syedpur route, passengers alleged that on average they had to pay 50-80% higher ticket fare for almost all the domestic routes as road and rail transports remained closed for the last few days due to anti-quota protests and the curfew imposed to contain countrywide violence. 

However, airlines have denied the allegations of almost doubling the airfare and claimed that there was a slight increase.

Many passengers got stuck at tourism city Cox's Bazar and Chattogram, the commercial capital of the country, as students started "Complete Shutdown" since Thursday.

Due to the high flow of Dhaka-bound passengers, airlines have increased the fare on those routes.

"The passengers who came to buy tickets in the final moment are paying higher price. Its nothing new as we have a fare range," Sakib Hasan Shuvo, deputy manager at Air Astra, told TBS.

"During the last few days, most flights from Dhaka to various domestic destinations were almost blank. But pressure of passengers was high from Cox's Bazar-Dhaka and Chattogram-Dhaka as people were stuck there. That's why we had to charge higher to adjust the round-trip cost," he added.

A passenger, who wanted to travel to Sylhet from Dhaka, told TBS that when he checked with ticket counters, all the airlines asked for Tk11,500 for each ticket. 

Speaking to the newspaper, Md Jilful said he phoned ticket counters at the Dhaka airport on Sunday and faced similar experience – being asked to pay almost double the regular fare.

On Monday, he visited the airport but returned empty-handed after seeing a long queue of would be passengers at ticket counters. People were waiting in long queues as online option is closed due to internet blackout.

Kamrul Islam, general manager (Public Relations) at the US-Bangla, told TBS, "Fare range at all private airlines operating on domestic routes is Tk5,400 to Tk11,500. If a passenger buys a ticket at the last moment, he has to pay the highest range of the fare."

"I myself visited ticket counters at the Dhaka airport on Monday to observe the situation after receiving allegations from some passengers. I would say that the allegations are not logical at all as the price increase is just from Tk500-Tk1,000 maximum," he added.

National carrier Biman Bangladesh Airlines and Novo Air are the two other companies which operate flights on six domestic routes.

On average, the Dhaka airport handles 150 flights daily, including international and local.