Post the Independence day, people onboarding the flights from Bengaluru nay no longer have to pay extra User Development Fee (UDF) for their tickets. The UDF was earlier hicked from Rs 139 to Rs 306 for domestic departures and from Rs 558 to Rs 1,226 for International departures. However, the prices will go back to the previous rates on from 16th August.
Airfares may drop marginally
From the coming Friday, the commuters will pay marginally lesser for all the tickets as the UDF charges. On 16th April this year, passengers witnessed an uneven hike which barely lasted for four months. The increased rates had come into impact from April 16th to August 15th. It was the Airport Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA), that admitted Bengaluru’s Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) to hike the UDF.
KIA’s operator Bengaluru International Airport Limited (BIAL) has now confirmed that the UDF was revised from Rs 139 to Rs 306 for domestic flights and from Rs 558 to Rs 1,226 for international flights, will go back to the previous rates starting August 16th.
Low User Development Fee will not affect the ticket costs
User Development Fee is a charge imposed by airports on passengers to recover the investment on development work such as the building of a new terminal building or a new infrastructure within the airdrome. Consequently, it is a fee which passengers are made to provide to the airport authorities for the airport betterment and adequate for the passengers.
A BIAL official told in a report that this resolution will not affect the ticket cost much. He said, “The dip in the UDF will not directly impact airfares as tickets are priced based on a dynamic pricing system followed by individual airlines, based on AERA guidelines. The UDF is a minor factor that affects the pricing and hence will not affect the ticket prices by and large.”
