Title - Passengers with unconfirmed Rajdhani tickets may soon opt to fly

Passengers with unconfirmed AC 1 and AC 2 tickets for Rajdhani Express may soon be able to fly to their destination instead by paying the difference in the price of train and air tickets. Ashwani Lohani had planned the move last summer when he was chairman of Air India but that time Railways never reacted to his proposal in a positive manner. now Lohani has become the chairman of Railway Board and he says if Air India will will put up the proposal again he will accept it.

Almost every day due to severe demand supply crunch in Indian Railways a large number of people ends up with unconfirmed AC Rajdhani tickets. to boost Air India's Occupancy Lohani planned a proposal in which such people will be given an offer to fly in  Air India for the same destination

AC 2 ticket fare of Rajdhani is more or less similar to Air fares. However with the process to privatise government owned Air India in final stage it remains to be seen that Air India goes for such a proposal or not.
If Air India is sold and becomes a private entity the benefits of having a government owned airline will be lost because it is only then when railways can transfer its unconfirmed premium passengers to state owned Airlines.

On the other hand senior IAS officer Rajiv Bansal who is now incharge of Air India as chairman from last 3 months says that he would not be immediately able to comment on this proposal as he is hearing it for the first time and there is a difference in train and air fare.