By Admin 
Flight Ticket Booking: You must have also felt this while booking flight tickets. While searching, the fare appears to be Rs 4999, but by the time of payment, the bill reaches Rs 8 to 9 thousand. Seat selection fee, bag fee, food fee and finally convenience fee separately. This is not a coincidence, but a well-thought-out business model of airlines and booking platforms.
Now this matter has reached the Supreme Court and the court has directed the Central Government to introduce new aviation rules within two weeks. Irrespective of whether these rules have been laid in the Parliament yet or not.
First of all, understand what is the cheap ticket scam?
The mathematics of airlines’ earnings no longer depends on tickets alone. Airlines sell some of their flight seats at prices below the average cost, in order to attract low-paying customers. This is the cheap fare shown in advertisements. The real earning comes later, which in industry language is called Ancillary Revenue.
Around 14 to 16 percent of the total earnings of airlines worldwide now comes from these additional charges. That means bags, seats, food, priority boarding, everything is sold separately.
Wealth: What is the definition of wealth, what is it, how to tell that Ram has wealth and Shyam does not?
Where are the pockets cut from booking to boarding?
The first step is search and booking.
Here you are shown the base fare. Taxes, fuel charges and airport fees keep getting added as you reach the payment page. Then the convenience fee of travel portals is charged separately, which ranges from Rs 149 to Rs 499 per passenger on most of the big platforms. This money does not go to the airline but to the booking portal.
The second step is seat selection.
To choose a window or preferred seat, one usually has to pay Rs 300 to Rs 800 per flight and the prices for seats with extra legroom are much higher. If a family wants to sit together, often a separate payment has to be made for each member.
Third stop is baggage
This is the biggest controversy of this entire story. In the petition filed in the Supreme Court, it has been said that without any concrete reason, all the private airlines reduced the free check-in baggage of economy class passengers from 25 kg to 15 kg, that is, the facility which was earlier included in the ticket, was made a new source of earning. If the weight exceeds the prescribed limit, Rs 400 to Rs 750 per kg is charged in domestic flights.
Fourth stage is cancellation and change
Usually, on ticket cancellation, a fee of Rs 2500 to 3500 is deducted, which is sometimes equal to the full price of a cheap ticket.
Dark pattern i.e. hidden trap on the screen
The government itself admits that methods that mislead passengers are used on booking platforms. Consumer protection authority CCPA had banned 13 types of dark patterns in November 2023, which include methods like false urgency, basket sneaking, confirm shaming, drip pricing.
Lines like demonetization will be formed outside ATMs! Cash shortage is going to happen, big strike announced
If understood in simple language, false urgency means repeatedly showing pressure like ‘only 2 seats left’ on the screen. Basket sneaking means adding things like insurance or meals to the cart without your consent and drip pricing means revealing the real price at the last payment step.
How big this problem is can be gauged from a survey. In the LocalCircles survey, 62 per cent of consumers said they frequently encountered hidden charges while booking flights that were not disclosed in advance, while 40 per cent said a service was added to their cart without their consent.
During IndiGo’s major crisis in December 2025, when more than 5000 flights were canceled in a week, such complaints increased further. The airline had promised free cancellation and full refund, but many passengers reported that the cancel option on the app was not working and only the option to change the date was visible.
Dynamic pricing, i.e. multiple prices for the same seat
Now the question is how the fare increases and decreases. In fact, after the abolition of the Air Corporation Act in 1994, air fares in India are completely determined by the market. The government neither decides nor controls fares. Airlines sell tickets in several price levels, or buckets, called RBD.
The cheapest bucket is sold first and as the seats fill up, the price moves to the next more expensive bucket. This is the reason why the fare increases manifold during festivals or long weekends. The Supreme Court itself gave this example. The bench said that on the same day, on the same route, one airline is charging Rs 8000 for economy and the other is charging Rs 18000.
What happened in the Supreme Court, complete timeline
This case started with a PIL filed by social activist S Lakshminarayanan. In November, the court had sought answers from the Center and other parties. The petition demands a strong and independent regulator which will ensure transparency in fares and safety of passengers. The court has even called the huge increase in rent ‘exploitation’.
The sharpest argument of the petition is that currently no authority has the power to review or cap fares or additional fees, which allows airlines to exploit consumers through hidden charges and uncertain pricing.
Now the bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta asked the Center why there is a delay in notifying the new aviation rules. It was told by the Center that the draft rules under the Indian Aircraft Act 2024 have been finalized and their translation is currently going on, after which they will be placed in both the Houses of Parliament for 30 days.
The government said that these rules would be laid in Parliament in the monsoon session running from July 20 to August 13, but the court refused to wait and directed that a sealed copy of the rules be submitted to the court within two weeks whether they were laid in Parliament or not. The next hearing will be on August 3.
The petitioner’s lawyer said in the hearing that the airlines are very powerful and an independent regulator is needed, not just a bureaucratic structure.
What may change next?
Now everyone’s eyes are on the rules of the Indian Aircraft Act 2024. If a solid mechanism is created to monitor fares and additional charges, then it will be the biggest change in Indian aviation since 1994. Till then the lesson for the passengers is clear. Read each charge carefully through to the last page of booking, remove automatically added items from cart and remember that the cheapest price on the screen is often not the whole story.