NEW DELHI: The craze for low-cost air travel has hit the pause button, with full-service airlines clawing back by narrowing the gap in tariffs.

While both categories of airlines have hiked fares repeatedly to offset stiff crude oil prices, full-service carriers (FSCs) have been a little less demanding than their budget counterparts. As a result, market share of full-service airlines has increased to 59% in August 2008 as compared to 51% in May.

Low-cost carriers (LCCs), on the other hand, had 41% market share in August as compared to a peak of 49% before their pie started shrinking a couple of months back. Passengers seem to feel that there is no point in sacrificing the comforts of traveling by a network carrier for the sake of a marginal difference in tariff.

“There is no low-cost model as such in the country as cost of operation for the two kinds of airlines is more or less same. If you see the cost of ground-handling, check-in, maintenance and baggage handling among others, the cost differential for the two models is not much.

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