IndiGo chief warns fare controls could hit passenger demand

The president of India’s largest private airline IndiGo has warned that government intervention to set fares threatens to undermine the restarting of flights after two months of grounding because of the pandemic. Wolfgang Prock-Schauer, president and COO of IndiGo, said that he was not in favour of the price band — with an upper and lower limit — imposed by New Delhi on flights until August. “We were not asking for that,” said Prock-Schauer, “As a matter of principle, we think airlines should be smart enough to do it on their own; let the market forces work.” Analysts said the regulation would hit demand in the world’s fastest-growing aviation market and put pressure on an industry already struggling with the impact of the country’s strict lockdown. “Price caps, even though temporary, set a very bad precedent,” said Kapil Kaul, south Asia chief at the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation. “The world over, companies are trying to reduce fares to attract people to come back. We have done the opposite.” New Delhi’s unexpected announcement last week that domestic flights would resume on Monday at reduced capacity has unleashed chaos in the industry, which had been preparing to restart at the end of the lockdown on May 31. Many states have also objected to restarting flights, or have proposed putting travellers into quarantine, complicating efforts to resume operations.<br/>