Zeebiz BureauNew Delhi: Delivering a double whammy to the Nasdaq-listed travel website ‘makemytrip.com’, Indigo and Jet Airways have pulled out inventory in protest against the 'opaque fares' scheme the portal deployed.
Alleging the website of showing favoritism to some of the rival airlines like GoAir, SpiceJet and even Kingfisher Airlines, both the airlines IndiGo and Jet Airways have decided to minimise their ticket sales from the portal. Moreover, the opaque fare policy also didn’t go down well with the two airlines whose market share put together constitute 50-60% in the business.
Offering opaque fares is a trade practice where a travel portal sells heavily discounted tickets without disclosing the name of the airline until the payment is made.
However, the portal removed all bargain fares from its site as soon as the two airlines took this step. MakeMyTrip claims the opaque fares were withdrawn on March 28, the day DGCA asked airlines to stop publishing opaque fares.
The opaque fare issue had flared recently, following Kingfisher Airlines’ flight cancellations in which, travel portals had put up a note saying the cash-strapped carrier was not part of the bargain fares.
First Published: Wednesday, April 18, 2012, 13:47