New Delhi, Oct. 19 -- The festival season has begun in India, which also means that the peak travel season is here. Last year, between October and December, a staggering 43 million domestic air passengers took to the skies. November 2024 set an all-time monthly record with 14.49 million travellers-only for December to surpass it with 14.9 million passengers.

This year, with credit rating agency Icra Ltd projecting domestic air travel to grow 4-6% in FY26, that record is likely to be broken once again. But with that surge comes a familiar problem for travellers-soaring airfares, as airlines cash in on the boom.

Every year, the media runs stories on record airfares. And every year, the government routinely assures passengers that it will ...