Jet Airways offers fares starting Rs 967 for Udan flights

Full-service carrier Jet Airways on Tuesday offered fares starting as low as Rs 967 for the Udan flights which it plans to start from June onwards.

The airline on Monday announced the commencement of its operations under the government’s regional connectivity scheme, Udan, from 14 June onwards, with the first flight set to take off from Lucknow towards Allahabad and Patna sector.

Jet Airways had bagged four routes in the second-round bidding in January, in which a total of 325 routes were awarded to various operators.

The airline will also fly on the Nagpur-Allahabad-Indore, Lucknow-Bareilly-Delhi and New Delhi-Nashik routes.

The fares for the flights under the Udan scheme will be Rs 967 to Rs 1,216, Jet Airways said in a release on Tuesday.

With at least half of the seats in the Udan flights are offered at a cut-off rate, the participating carriers get a certain amount of viability gap funding (VGF), an amount shared between the Centre and the State concerned.

The government had in March 2017 awarded 128 regional routes to five airlines for launching flights under the Ude Desh Ka Aaam Naagarik (Udan) scheme, which aims at boosting air connectivity.

The fares have been kept at Rs 2,500 for a one-hour journey, under the scheme.