Photo Credit: Indiatimes

New Delhi: Your air tickets in and out of New Delhi will soon become much cheaper! Here's why - the Aviation Ministry had decided to waive off the user development fee.

The UDF for outbound flyers, which had increased to Rs 1,131 (excluding taxes), has now been reduced to Rs 10 for domestic flyers and Rs 45 for international flyers. What’s more, the landing-parking charges for airlines have also been reduced.

This notification implementing the much lower aeronautical tariff regime at Delhi’s IGI airport was released by the Aviation Ministry.

Under the new tariff, a Delhi-London/New York-Delhi ticket purchased now will see its arriving-departing UDF component for Delhi airport fall from Rs 2,436 (with taxes) to just over Rs 53—making the ticket cheaper by almost Rs 2,380.

A Delhi-Mumbai-Delhi ticket will see its UDF component dip from Rs 1,068 (with taxes) to just Rs 12—cheaper by Rs 1,056. And for flyers travelling in groups and with their families, the savings will only multiply.

"The DGCA will have to decide whether passengers who paid the old UDF for travel after July 3 should get a refund or that money should go to Delhi Airport for being adjusted from future revenue requirements," GMR Airports president Sidharth Kapur told TOI.

These slashed (for departing) and abolished (for arriving) UDF charges are part of the 96% lower tariff order that the Airport Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) had issued for IGIA in December 2015.

While this delayed "second control period" order was to be effective from April 1, 2014, to March 31, 2019, the Delhi International Airport Pvt Ltd (DIAL) kept charging AERA's higher first control period order till now by taking legal recourse.