For celebrity chef Suresh Pillai, a December 6 work trip to Bengaluru turned unexpectedly hectic. Flying from Kochi with plans to return the same night on a 10 pm IndiGo flight, he discovered it had been cancelled. Needing to reach Kochi by the next morning, he secured the last available bus seat and reached Madiwala in Bengaluru just in time. “An hour into the journey, the driver upgraded me to an empty front seat—a pleasant surprise on my first long-distance bus ride in years. After a good night’s sleep, I reached Vyttila in Kochi by 7 am,” Pillai wrote on Facebook.
Pillai’s experience mirrors that of many passengers who, after thousands of IndiGo flight cancellations due to stricter DGCA safety rules, turned to intercity buses. With flights and train tickets unavailable, demand for sleeper buses surged, driving higher bookings and fare hikes.
Prasanna Patwardhan, president of the Bus and Car Operators Confederation of India, noted that metro-to-metro routes saw abnormal spikes, with some fares reaching three times the normal rate—up to ₹7,000–9,000. Redbus data showed a 17% rise in bookings from December 5–8, especially on high-demand routes like Hyderabad-Mumbai, Mumbai-Bengaluru, and Pune-Hyderabad. Average selling prices grew 25%, reflecting operators’ response to surging demand and inventory deployment on flexible bus routes.
