As Durga Puja approaches, natives of West Bengal make a beeline to return to their hometowns to spend time with family and friends, share festive food and seek blessings of the Goddess Durga. Over the years, the celebrations have also begun attracting tourists from all across the country and a significant chunk from abroad.
Airlines try to cash in on the festive rush by adding flights to Kolkata, and this year, they are rushing to add seats. With the traditionally strong April to June quarter washed out this year, the aviation industry is now banking on the upcoming festive season, starting with Durga Puja, followed by Diwali and culminating in the Christmas-New Year break.
This year, Durga Puja will be celebrated from Sunday, 28 September, to Thursday, 2 October, which marks Dussehra. While Navaratri spans nine days, Durga Puja is celebrated with much fanfare from the sixth day, known as Shashti. Over the years, festivities have started much earlier and rightly so.
Airlines have jumped in to add capacity to Kolkata, with seat availability gradually increasing from mid-September until early October. According to data from Cirium, an aviation analytics company cited exclusively for this article, Kolkata is connected to 49 domestic destinations. Notably, there is a 25% increase in seats between Ahmedabad and Kolkata across five days between 27 September and 4 October.
The Bengaluru-Kolkata sector offers an average of 3,602 daily seats each way during the Durga Puja days, compared to 3,350 seats over a similar week early in September.
From Mumbai, Hyderabad and Delhi, nearly 500 extra seats each per day are on offer.
A direct service between Kochi and Kolkata will start on 26 September to cater to the Puja traffic. Routes from Jaipur, Raipur, Shillong and Varanasi to Kolkata are also seeing seats nearly double just for the days leading up to the start of Durga Puja.
Which airlines are adding capacity?
Market leader IndiGo is leading the charge, adding up to 23 extra flights on domestic routes from Kolkata, in addition to deploying higher-capacity aircraft to help with more seats. On a typical Sunday, the airline operates 104 domestic departures to Kolkata, which is scheduled to go up to 127 on 27 September.
Air India will add up to three daily departures, while its low-cost subsidiary Air India Express will add up to six daily departures.
SpiceJet, despite its financial challenges, will also see up to nine arrivals and departures into Kolkata on some days. Currently, it has a skeletal presence at Kolkata with only five daily departures.
Kolkata Airport is expected to handle over 30 more flights for a few days leading up to the Durga Puja celebrations. Interestingly, while many people are coming into Kolkata, outbound traffic of holiday goers is also rising, with additional seats being deployed on flights to Goa and Port Blair from Kolkata during the Puja period.
Fares start inching upwards
Air fares have already started inching upwards for the peak travel dates, with flights priced upwards of ₹10,000, with some flights being available at over ₹25,000 from Delhi and Mumbai.
Trains to Kolkata are sold out with the status being “Reret”, a term used to indicate that railways have run out of not just seats, but also the waiting list quota. This is good news for the airlines, which have reduced capacity from the summer peak to better adjust to demand in the market. There is spare capacity available to deploy for such short-term peaks, and it will give higher than average revenue and Revenue per Available Seat Kilometres (RASK) for the additional flights, a win-win for airlines as well as passengers, because had this additional capacity not been deployed in the market, the air fares would have shot up further than what they already are today.
While it may never be too late to make a Pujo plan, it certainly looks too late now to book a ticket to Kolkata.
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