Carrying extra bag or baggage? You could end up paying more than the air fare on some sectors!

The Jet Airways group recorded an average fare of INR 7080 in last financial year. This includes its Domestic as well as International operations. While Jet Airways has near equal division of revenue for Domestic and International, Spicejet which has far lesser International exposure reported average fare of INR 3670. But come second half of July, at least one airline would want you to pay more than your air ticket (on some routes) for the second piece of baggage that you would want to check in.

Jet Airways will charge INR 4000 for a second bag to be checked-in and this bag cannot weigh beyond 23 kgs! These rules are applicable only to economy class passengers and Business class passengers get two pieces of baggage, not exceeding 15kgs each. The Jet Airways rules are effective 15^th of July for tickets booked on or after 15^th June. The baggage rules are for non frequent fliers or fliers with Blue and Blue Plus. The higher tiers get higher allowance if they purchase tickets in certain fare classes.

Jet Airways is not the only carrier to make changes to their extra baggage policy. Over the last two weeks, almost every airline has hiked the charges for excess baggage for domestic fliers in India. IndiGo and Go Air continue to have a cap on the weight of the baggage but not (yet!) on the number of pieces. Both the airlines have hiked the extra baggage charges beyond 5kgs by INR 100 per kg. The pre booking continues to be categorized in slabs of 5 kgs with INR 1900 for 5kg, INR 3800 for 10 kgs, INR 5700 for 15kgs and INR 11400 for 30kgs.

Jet Airways allows you to select excess baggage upto 32kgs, which is the maximum weight of the baggage allowed by labour laws in most countries for baggage handlers and a selection for additional bag.

This is by far the most stringent set of rules coming in place since unbundling of fares was allowed in 2013 and comes on the backdrop of rising oil prices and congestion in Indian skies eating away profits. Airlines have been looking for avenues to increase ancillary revenue due to pressure on ticket prices, thanks to huge growth in capacity.

Below is the snap shot from Google flights showing prices of flights from Delhi for a random date in July, almost all of the important sectors which see good frequency and capacity are selling below INR 4000. This also indicates the need for airlines to get revenue from sources other than the ticket prices!