Pune:A cool chopper ride to Mumbai or a dash to Delhi on a chartered flight has become dearer by 30-40% in April — T S Eliot’s “the cruellest month”.Reason: The West Asia conflict-induced price hike of aviation turbine fuel (ATF). End-result: Decline in customer base of operators.Ishwarchandra Gulgule, the managing director of Kaigu Aviation, toldTOI, “Earlier, one had to spend around Rs3.5 lakh to Rs4 lakh to hire a chopper to Mumbai. The fare has spiked to almost Rs5.5 lakh in April, excluding the 18% GST.”The ATF price surged to record high in India in April.Its price for non-scheduled and chartered operations more than doubled this month to Rs 1,94,968.67 per kilolitre from Rs90,451.87 per kilolitre in Mumbai.American-English poet, playwright and literary critic Eliot called April “the cruellest month” in “The Waste Land” because spring forced life to come back again. Flyers can term this month “rude” because of the upward revision of ATF price and the subsequent hike in airfares.Gulgule said, “The inauguration of the Navi Mumbai International Airport resulted in an increase in the aerial travel time between the two cities on a chopper from the earlier 45 minutes to an hour. First, this increased the fare. The higher ATF price because of the West Asia conflict jacked it up further.”The average weekly chopper movements between Pune and Mumbai are around 25-30. Mainly politicians, businessmen and entrepreneurs are the clients.There has been an identical price hike of chopper rides on Pune-Solapur, Pune-Kolhapur and Pune-Sambhajinagar routes. “The fares are about the same on these routes and so is the hike,” Gulgule said.“Most of our regular customers are still using choppers, but a dip is slowly being seen. What is alarming is new customers are not coming now. We are getting 10-12 queries each day, but these are not converting into bookings. At this moment, we don’t know in which direction the business is heading,” Gulgule said.A representative of another aviation company said charter flight costs had also increased sharply. “For example, the cost of a trip from Pune to Delhi (one-way) was around Rs10 lakh earlier. Now, it’s almost Rs14 lakh barring the GST. Similarly, the cost of a one-way trip from Pune to Bengaluru costs Rs8 lakh or more now. Earlier, the pocket pinch was Rs6 lakh per trip. The cost factor for both chartered flights and choppers hinges on the make of the flying machine and ground handling charges,” the representative said.
