MUMBAI: After the national carrier’s decision to drop fares by up to 70%, the Naresh Goyal-owned JetLite and low-cost carrier SpiceJet reacted on Tuesday by announcing reduced return fare prices. This could well pave the way for another fare war in the domestic aviation market.

Interestingly, SpiceJet made a complete U-turn from its announcement last week when it said it would increase fares following the hike in jet fuel prices. For those choosing to travel by JetLite, return fares will now be available on 24 domestic sectors from Rs 4,170 starting Wednesday. A passenger can now book a Mumbai-Goa return ticket for Rs 4,170 on a 10-day advance purchase, while the same ticket will be available for Rs 4,800 if it is an instant purchase.

Currently, JetLite return fare on the Mumbai-Goa sector is Rs 5,600 — the new fares will therefore will be down by as much as 25%. Similarly, Mumbai-Hyderabad-Mumbai ticket will cost Rs 4,170 instead of Rs 5,200 — down 20%. On routes like Kolkata-Guwahati-Kolkata and Delhi-Srinagar-Delhi, the airline is offering tickets at Rs 4,170. These return fares are all-inclusive and exclude the airport development fee, user development fee and passenger service fee components.

Those flying by SpiceJet will save Rs 500 per passenger on round trips for all sectors. These bookings can be done for travel up to October 25, 2009. Samyukth Sridharan, chief commercial officer, SpiceJet said: “This will encourage both business and leisure travelers, and also increase our passenger load factor.
”Mark Martin, senior advisor, KPMG, said, “Competition is ultimately helping passengers. Airlines need to stimulate the market as load factors have been falling since August.”

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