IndiGo raises infant fare by Rs 1,000 to Rs 3,000
IndiGo has increased its domestic infant fare from Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,000, even though infants get no seat or extra facility.
If you are flying with a small child, you will need to loosen your purse strings a bit more. IndiGo has raised the fare for infants, children up to 2 years old, on domestic flights by Rs 1,000. It was earlier Rs 2,000 and will now be Rs 3,000. Notably, the child does not get a separate seat on the aircraft or any extra facility, yet parents will have to pay this full fare.
IndiGo's official fee list currently records the domestic infant fee at Rs 3,000. According to IndiGo's rules, a separate seat cannot be booked for an infant, and the child travels on the lap of an adult passenger. Only one infant is allowed per adult.
Infant details must be provided while booking a ticket, and the fixed fee has to be paid for it, even though the infant does not get a separate seat. Proof of the child's age also has to be carried during travel. According to IndiGo, children older than 3 days and up to 2 years of age are considered infants. It is being claimed that this fare hike could bring IndiGo additional annual earnings of around Rs 90 crore.
It is not just the fare for infants that has gone up. There is also a fixed fee for minors travelling alone. IndiGo has set the domestic fee for its Flying Solo unaccompanied minor service at Rs 5,999. Children aged 5 to 12 years can use this service, while children below 5 years cannot travel alone. This means that for families travelling with small children, the ticket price alone does not matter; the infant fee and other ancillary services can also add to the total cost. Besides the infant fee, the airline's website has separate charges fixed for baggage and other add-on services, which keep changing depending on the journey and service.
Meanwhile, flight delays and cancellations also continue unabated. On Thursday, Air India Express flight IX 5003, which was to depart from Nagpur for Kolkata at 11:40 pm, was cancelled due to technical reasons. Besides this, 3 additional flights scheduled for Bengaluru and Hyderabad on September 17 and 18 had also been announced, but they too were cancelled.
