'Don't travel by air': Supreme Court refuses urgent hearing on festival airfare surge

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear urgently an application seeking to curb airfares that the petitioner said had risen to as much as seven times their normal level ahead of the Diwali season. "Don't travel by air. Next case," Justice Vikram Nath said as he declined to list the matter, the legal news site LiveLaw reported.

The bench, which also included Justice Sandeep Mehta and Justice Aparesh Singh, did not rule on the substance of the complaint. The main public interest petition, S. Laxminarayanan v. Union of India, is already pending and is next listed on 16 November, after the festival rush.

What the plea asked for

The interlocutory application, filed on 30 October in the pending petition, asked the court to direct the Centre and the aviation regulator, the DGCA, to act against what it called excessive festival fares, and to restore the free checked-baggage allowance in economy class on domestic flights from 15 kg to the earlier 25 kg, LiveLaw reported. Counsel for the petitioner told the bench that fares had gone up to 700% of normal.

Citing a Hindustan newspaper report of 29 October, the application said a Delhi-Kolkata ticket that ordinarily costs Rs 10,000 to Rs 11,000 was priced at Rs 78,694 for travel on 6 November. It also cited a Mumbai-Delhi fare that rose from Rs 11,531 to Rs 60,577, and a Bengaluru-Delhi route on which the 5 am flight cost about Rs 15,901 and the 3.45 pm flight Rs 40,506 on the same day. The Declaration has not independently checked these fares.

The plea rejected the airlines' explanation that fares track the cost of aviation turbine fuel, an explanation it said the government had "publicly echoed". "The fuel burnt by the 5:00 AM and the 3:45 PM flight on the same route and day is the same, yet one fare is over two and a half times the other," it said, according to LiveLaw.

It argued that people who must travel home for a festival, or at short notice because of illness, a death or a job, have no real choice but to pay. It compared air travel with railway flexi fares, which it said are capped at one and a half times the base fare, and with price controls on essential medicines and regulated electricity tariffs. "Air travel cannot be the sole exception," the application said.

The law on fares

The plea relied on Rule 135 of the Aircraft Rules, 1937, kept in force by the Bharatiya Vayuyan Adhiniyam, 2024, which it said requires tariffs to be set with regard to the cost of operation, reasonable profit and prevailing tariffs, and lets the DGCA act against excessive or predatory fares. It said the government's failure to use that power violated the rights to equality, free movement and life under Articles 14, 19(1)(d) and 21 of the Constitution.

The Centre notified new rules, the Bharatiya Vayuyan Niyam, 2026, on 1 November, LiveLaw reported. They take effect on 1 January 2027, and Rule 192 requires airlines to set fares with regard to factors including operating costs and to submit their tariffs to the DGCA.

Background

Monday's brush-off came from a court that has been sharply critical of festival fares in the same case. In January, a bench of Justices Nath and Mehta called steep fare rises during festivals "exploitation" and said it would interfere with "unpredictable fluctuations" in fares, All India Radio's news service reported. At a hearing that month, Justice Mehta said fares to Prayagraj and Jodhpur had been three times higher during festivals, Bar and Bench reported.

In February, the government told the court it was examining the issue "at the highest level". In July, the bench gave the Centre two weeks to place the new aviation rules before it in a sealed cover, Verdictum reported. The Centre has since notified the Bharatiya Vayuyan Niyam, 2026.

What happens next

With the court declining an early hearing, any relief will come, if at all, after the festival travel peak. The petition returns to the court on 16 November.