Summer travel dreams hit turbulence as wars and air ticket prices climb together

Itrsquos summer but travel plans are cancelled As the war in West Asia continues Air Turbine Fuel ATF costs have risen leading many to cancel plans to travel abroad while travel agencies report having little to no clients Buddy trip cancelledHemanth Akshar a resident from Hyderabad was planning to go for a vacation with his family this summer but those plans have now been cancelled due to air fares increasing ldquoMy cousins and I were planning a trip to the middle east this year By mid to late April all had confirmed their availabilities for May but when we looked up the costs of the flights there were ranging upwards of Rs 40000 per person for one way ticketsrdquoldquoThough we are comfortable enough monetarily to spend we didnrsquot want to And the war conditions have also become a point of contention for us as we never know what can happen For now our plans have been indefinitely postponed as it is difficult to gauge the ticket pricesrdquo he addedAs it becomes too expensive to travel abroad Indians are thinking of travelling in India itself PiciStockStuck in limboDurga Gadepalli another resident of Hyderabad had come to India for a visit from Kuwait back in December of 2025 Gadepalli though is one of those affected by Kuwait shutting down its airport only to restart domestic flights mid March while international flights will begin on June 1 This instability led Gadepalli to not book her ticket She said ldquoI had to stay in India till March for a wedding and by that time the Kuwait airport was already closed Hence I decided it would be a better option to wait for a few more weeks before flying out Right now if I have to fly to Kuwait this week I would need to fly to a different airport in nearby cities like the King Fahd airport in Saudi Arabia and then go by road to Kuwait But those tickets are very costlyrdquoldquoThe tickets currently are anything between Rs 80000 to Rs 1 lakh so you can imagine what the prices will be by next weekrdquo says Gadepalli but it doesnrsquot look like she has much of an optionTravel agents speakKhyati Mehta a travel agent in Mumbai and Founding Director of the agency Dream2Holiday explained to Sunday midday how they might be losing around 100 travel clients this year due to the uncertainty that has now come into the international travel marketMehta said ldquoPeople have cancelled travelling plans mainly because of increasing costs but the other reason has been the absolute fear around travelling during war Travel aspirants are people who are worried about getting stuck in another country which is valid Two main changes which I have noticed in the customers now are that One they are thinking about cancelling their plans even before they travel and the second being that peoplersquos longpending domestic travel plans have now resurfacedrdquoTravelling agencies though Mehta said make money off international travel clients ldquoAs far as international travel is concerned we charge money for the personal touch A holeinthewall restaurant that has great food a lesserknown area that will knock the clientrsquos socks off or just a good hotel that saves them from the fatigue of researching a good one But with domestic plans people know almost everything from the internetrdquo In fact some of the brochures and itineraries shared by Mehta and her company often become a guide for many to planityourself ldquoPeople come to us take our offer on an itinerary and then use that as a comparison point with other agenciesSome even see the names of the hotels and try booking the same itinerary themselves So far we have also received requests to just arrange a car in Indian cities but that doesnrsquot earn much for usrdquo Mehta addedHemant AksharAirlines strugglingThe Federation of Indian Airlines wrote to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation and the Ministry of Civil Aviation to address the issue in which the federation said ldquoThe airline industry in India is under extreme stress and is on the verge of closing down or stopping operationsrdquo This issue has not only been limited to airlines in the country but has also now affected the daytoday lives of Indians as well as small travel agency owners