Hyderabad: Prices of airline tickets between cities in India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have skyrocketed as the country opened doors for vaccinated residents, tourist and with official opening of Dubai Expo 2020 on October 1.
Travel agents said one-way fares from Indian cities such as Hyderabad, Kozhikode, Kochi, Delhi are as high as Dirham 2,000 (Rs 40,373) near the departure date.
Ticket prices have doubled from India, ever since the UAE announced the reopening its borders to fully vaccinated travelers since August 30, to visit families, seek better job opportunities, and visit the Dubai Expo 2020, agents have said.
“As UAE is also used for transit travelers, to get to the third country like US, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia as there final destination,” Mohammed Omer Ali, operation manager of Musafir services told siasat.com.
Many India-based travel agents are getting continuous calls from people, who have jobs their and want to leave for the UAE urgently. Travel agent of Shaik tours and travel, Shaik Waheed, said that the airfares for travel to the UAE from India have gone up double.
Normally, tickets from India’s capital city would cost about Dirham 743 (Rs 15,000) for one-way. But now the minimum fare from India to the UAE alone is over Rs 40,000. A family of four has to spend at least Rs 1.60 lakh to reach the UAE.
A woman from the city, who did not want to be named, and has been waiting to go to the UAE said, “We have been stranded in Hyderabad for months due to the travel ban. As soon the government lifted the travel ban for Indian travellers, we were waiting to book and now worried due to the increase in fares.”
UAE is one of the most travelled to destinations for Indian travelers as well, but the country has imposed restrictions since April during the second wave of COVID, and is now gradually lifting the restrictions.