Flyers lunge for GoAir's Rs 1,469 ticket offer, but left searching on portal

Merry Christmas! Yes, but not for GoAir. The Wadia Group-promoted budget carrier GoAir has put 1.7 million seats up for sale, offering fares as low as Rs 1,469 for travel next year with a five-day booking period starting Monday, to stimulate demand during the lean period.

But, their website goair.in seems to be finding it hard to deal with the sudden surge in demand with many prospective flyers simultaneously trying to get hold of a cheap ticket. We attempted to book a ticket for January 2015 and unfortunately faced a lot of glitches. The cheapest ticket we got was Rs 3,664 from Mumbai to Ahmedabad. So much for their Rs 1,469 tickets, right?

The bookings under the offer can apparently be made between 21-25 December and the special offer is available on flights across the GoAir network for a travel period between 1 January and 31 March, the airline said earlier.

“The January-March quarter is traditionally a lean quarter… The purpose of introducing these fares is to make air travel affordable during the period,” said GoAir chief executive Giorgio De Roni.

Stating that lowering of ticket prices was not to trigger a fare war in the domestic skies, De Roni said, “It is not an offer on lowest price or the cheapest price but to make it affordable and more attractive during the lean period.”

GoAir is committed to offer the affordable fares that allows it to deliver a sustainable result, De Roni said, adding “we can grow only when we are profitable and develop our network and the fleet”.

On realising that this was probably another marketing strategy from GoAir, their customers were less than pleased.