mumbai in the coming week flights will largely be packed with two types of passengers those heading home for diwali and those headed for a holiday among these two categories would be two distinct groupsthe lucky lot that is those headed south to destinations like hyderabad bangalore and then those bound for varanasi lucknow jaipur amritsar up north for its that time of the year when india gets neatly divided into twothe south where the airfares stay low as it is well connected by air and the north which isnt as well served by flights add to that the fact that diwali is a much bigger festival up north so the demand for northbound flights peaks and so do the airfares which is why for a mere rs 4000 you could purchase on friday a oneway allinclusive air ticket to bangalore or hyderabad for travel on saturday or sunday but if you were to book a ticket to the north you have to pay multifold on friday the cheapest oneway fare on the mumbaivaranasi nonstop route was rs 21000 for travel on saturday and rs 16000 for sunday the cheapest fares on flights from mumbai to lucknow too cost the same but they were not on nonstop flights the fares were on impractically long flights with 1617hourlong transit halt in delhi by comparison the mumbaiamritsar fares were better at rs 15400 for travel on saturday and rs 10600 for sundaysharat dhall of yatracom an online travel portal attributed it to the demandsupply situation there are not as many flights flying into lucknow as there are to hyderabad and bangalore he said then again diwali is big in the north a fairly significant chunk of travellers plan to explore their wanderlust by celebrating diwali at destinations that have a unique charm such as amritsar jaipur and varanasithough airfares have climbed for this weekend a bigger rush is expected for the coming midweek kapil goswamy of bigbreakscom said starting october 19 thursday the long weekend will extend till october 22 sunday major festivals like diwali govardhan puja and bhaidooj fall within these days travel during the festive season is mainly driven by people who commute between cities in order to meet their friends and relatives every year diwali witnesses recordbreaking escalation of 4550 in travel bookings shravan gupta of fcm travel solutions said we have seen a 53 uptake in overall bookings for the nineday holiday period between october 14 and 22 this year visavis the previous yearnot just domestic destinations diwali travel also picks up on foreign routes karan anand of cox kings said short vacations are the trend during diwali the average holiday period is between five and seven nights we have seen a 1015 growth in international destinations such as bali thailand sri lanka singapore malaysia and maldives destinations that appeal to people are those offering visa on arrival