DOHA: Air tickets have become cheaper by 20-25 percent compared with the same season during the previous year. The low price is being attributed to a steep fall in demand for various sectors. Industry sources told The Peninsula that major airlines are offering tickets lower than the special fares that they had offered to various destinations during same season last year. Compared to the high-end classes, the rates have fallen considerably in the economy class, they said.

The drastic fall in the fares has been attributed a general lull in the market due to the financial crisis. Citing a lean traffic during this Christmas-New Year holidays, the industry sources say the cash-strapped people have cut down their leisure trip.

“The traffic is at least 30 per cent low during the last three months, compared to the previous season. This has forced us to come impose a major slash in the ticket fares and launch exciting promotions”, they said.

There is at least a 20-25 percent fall in the fares to different sectors in India. In some sectors it is almost 30 percent low. “For instance, airlines were offering an economy class ticket for QR2000-QR2100 to Southern Indian destinations during last February-March months. Now tickets to these destinations are available for QR1660-QR1740”, a travel company official said.

During early March in 2008, a round trip ticket fare to Mumbai was QR2000. Now Qatar airways is offering a return ticket for QR1590 to Mumbai, said another company official.

The international scheduled traffic results for January 2009, released by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), have showed that the Middle East was the only region that registered a positive traffic growth during the period.

World airlines traffic for both passengers and cargo slumped sharply in January compared with a year earlier as global economic conditions deteriorated, IATA said. The traffic results which showed a deepening year-on-year demand slump across the world as compared to the corresponding month in 20008, the Middle East region registered a 3.1 percent growth. However, this is far below both the doubled-digit traffic growth in 2008 and the 10.8 percent expansion capacity.

The association said January’s drops were greater than those recorded for December, when passenger traffic fell 4.6 percent globally, from the previous December and cargo dropped 22.6 percent. The international passenger demand fell by 5.6 percent in January 2009 compared to the same month in 2008. The January fall in demand is the fifth consecutive month of contraction.

Asian carriers were down by 5.7 percent, a sharper decrease than the 2.7 percent fall in December as European economies move into deep recession. The peninsula