One-way fares for the next few days range from about Rs 14,000 to a whopping Rs 30,180 on high demand sectors like Kolkata-Delhi or Ranchi-Delhi, while a major chunk of direct flights have been fully booked, travel portals and airlines sites showed.

The travel portals showed that air travellers have been left with no option but to reach their destinations on hopping flights and that too, at a very high price.

"I have asked DGCA to use its powers and look into the matter, although beyond a point, we cannot do anything," Civil Aviation Minister Vayalar Ravi said here yesterday.

While officials maintained that the high rates were being constantly monitored by a committee in the Directorate General of Civil Aviation set up a year ago, there seems to have been no impact on the fare levels.

The last-minute fares of almost all major airlines have risen by an average of 30-40 per cent due to the festive season, though sources in the airline industry maintained that due to high passenger traffic, the low-fare buckets were getting filled up fast leaving only the high-fare options.