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Major airlines in the country have decided to raise the prices of air travel by hiking fuel surcharge, owing to oil companies raising aviation turbine fuel (ATF) prices by 18 percent. Though airlines are expected to announce the hike on Tuesday, Air India has already announced that travel by the Indian carrier will become more expensive from June 3. Air India officials revealed that the fuel surcharge on short-haul flights would go upto Rs2,250 and on long-haul flights it would be Rs2,900.
An Air India official remarked that in view of the substantial increase announced by the oil companies in the ATF prices, a hike in the fuel surcharge was inevitable. The fuel surcharge has made not just the domestic air travel more expensive but has major implications for international flights as well. Big players like Lufthansa and British Airways are likely to give their hiked figures on Monday. The hike announced on Sunday, is the fourth straight hike in ATF prices since February 2007. State run oil firms including Hindustan Petroleum Corp, Indian Oil Corp Ltd, and Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd were forced to raise the ATF prices in step with the rising international oil prices.
