PANAJI
The year’s consecutive second and third long weekends have once again brought a surge in airfares for trips to and from Goa. Coinciding with the onset of summer vacation, these weekends will also be a peak period for families to organise their holidays, another reason for the escalating expenses of air travel.
One-way airfares from Delhi have surged to Rs 8,800 and beyond for the Holi weekend, reaching as high as Rs 9,500 for the Good Friday-Easter weekend. Similarly, fares from Bangalore have climbed to around Rs 5,000 and reached up to Rs 8,000 during both these upcoming weekends.
The flight rates from Mumbai, Hyderabad, and other closer destinations also hover between Rs 4,000-5,000 and above, with prices escalating with each successive click on the booking portals.
Traveling from Pune to Goa for the Holi weekend will certainly burn one’s pocket as the one-way charges are over Rs 11,000 and return fares after the second long weekend are equally expensive.
The tourism industry acknowledged that despite an expected influx of visitors, the turnout might not match that of other short holidays due to final exams taking place in many States.
"Tourists will certainly come to Goa, especially for Holi celebrations. However, due to final exams, the crowds might not be as overwhelming. Nevertheless, tourists will still be present during these long weekends,” Nilesh Shah, President of TTAG, said speaking to The Goan. The first long weekend for 2024 started with Republic Day.
Amid competition between Goa’s once-only Dabolim International Airport, and the Manohar International Airport (MIA), Mopa; the former expects not less than 20,000 passengers on each of the two upcoming weekends at its facility.
"We normally record 20,000- 21,000 passengers each weekend (Saturday-Sunday), although the figures were around 25,000 before the MIA. Nevertheless, passenger traffic remains robust, and with the upcoming long weekends, we expect a slight uptick in the numbers compared to our current weekend data,” Dabolim Airport Director Dhananjay Rao said when reached out to by The Goan, for comment.
As per the AAI figures, Dabolim handled an impressive 44,632 international passengers and 5,65,277 domestic passengers in January 2024, as against 22,304 international and 4,75,154 domestic passengers at MIA.
With the passenger count higher, the figures for February are awaited even as a private firm has released tentative data for MIA which stated that passenger traffic crossed 4.6mn for a period from January 5 to February 29.
