Mumbai, Oct. 14 -- As the Diwali travel rush takes off, so have the airfares, sending tickets on key routes to as high as Rs 40,000 owing to high demand and packed schedules. Many popular routes are experiencing a fare surge of 50-100 percent.

On travel platform Cleartrip, average airfares increased by 36 percent with airfares on some routes like Bengaluru to Kanpur soaring up to Rs 40,000 one way.

Flights between Mumbai and Patna are now averaging Rs 14,540, up from Rs 9,584, while Bengaluru to Lucknow has seen fares rise from Rs 6,720 to Rs 9,899. One-way fares from Pune to Nagpur have reached Rs 19,000 during the Diwali rush.

Ticket prices on other routes such as Hyderabad to Patna, Lucknow, Guwahati, Jaipur, and Chandigarh have als...