Cyclone Dana and Diwali have pushed airfares to and from Calcutta through the roof.

Calcutta airport decided to shut down for 15 hours, from 6pm on Thursday till 9am on Friday, because the cyclone can trigger crosswinds of up to 80km an hour. But threat calls to 11 flights in and out of the city caused delays, with the last flight taking off at 7pm, officials said.

They said 309 flights, domestic and international, to and from Calcutta had been cancelled because of the approaching storm.

A rush to reach or leave the city before the cyclone struck — and a scurry for rebookings by passengers booked on cancelled flights — caused airfares to rise threefold or even fourfold.

A one-way ticket from Calcutta to Delhi on Thursday morning was priced at ₹35,000. Usually, the fare is around ₹8,000. A seat on a flight from Mumbai to Calcutta on Friday evening cost nearly ₹30,000 when the usual ticket price is around ₹11,000 even if booked “at the last minute”, tour operators said.

Many passengers of the cancelled flights were unable to secure seats for the next two days. Some of them had to take hopping flights to or out of Calcutta, with stopovers in other cities.

For them, a journey that takes two to two-and-a-half hours on a direct flight would now take six to seven hours.

Park Street resident Yamini Mehta, who has had surgery at a private hospital in Mumbai, was to catch an 8pm flight on Thursday back to Calcutta with her husband Manish and son Manan. The flight was cancelled because of the airport closure.

“We were booked with Akasa Airlines. The airline told us they would be able to rebook us on a flight only for October 29 because there are no seats on the flights before that,” Yamini said.

“So, we bought fresh tickets for an IndiGo flight that will depart at 8.10 on Friday evening. Each ticket cost us Rs 27,000.”

The family had bought their Akasa tickets for Rs 9,000 one way, per passenger.

However, with just two seats available on the IndiGo flight, son Manan will have to take a hopping flight from Mumbai to Calcutta, with a stopover at Bangalore.

“The flight will take off from Mumbai at midnight on Saturday and reach Calcutta at 6am,” Yamini said.

Calcutta-based businessman Arindam Chakraborty had an IndiGo ticket for an 11am Mumbai-to-Calcutta flight on Friday. Although the airport is expected to become operational by 9am, the airline told Chakraborty the flight had been cancelled since the preceding flight from Calcutta would not be able to arrive in Mumbai before 11am.

“I have rebooked on an IndiGo flight from Mumbai to Calcutta that makes a stopover at Bagdogra,” Chakraborty said. He will be boarding the flight at 8am in Mumbai and expects to reach Calcutta around 3.30pm.

His daughter Aatreyee had to reach Delhi on Thursday because she has an examination on Friday morning.

“The one-way fare for the Vistara flight was Rs 35,000, which was exorbitant,” Chakraborty said.

He bought a ticket for an IndiGo flight from Calcutta to Chandigarh and onwards to Srinagar, from where his daughter would catch a flight to Delhi. The total fare came to Rs 19,000, he said. She boarded the flight at 3.30pm from Calcutta, expecting to reach Delhi around 9pm.

“The cancellation of so many flights triggered a huge rush, which added to the heavy traffic for Diwali. This has pushed up airfares to levels that we usually see a day or two before Diwali,” said Anil Punjabi, national committee member of the Travel Agents Federation of India, representing the eastern region.

“We have been flooded with phone calls for rebooking and fresh tickets since Thursday morning. Several people cancelled their travel plans because of the high fares.”

Sources in several airlines said that passengers’ frantic rush to rebook caused their websites to malfunction on Thursday. As a result, many passengers were left phoning call centres and finding themselves put on hold for long periods.