They maintained that if passengers compare the fares for a ticket they bought from Jet Airways some time ago with the current fare, it would obviously be higher.

'When passengers approached us with a Jet Airways ticket, they got a seat on Air India on the same very fare,' said Jitendra Bhargava, spokesperson for the national carrier.

'But in case somebody gets a refund and then comes to book a fresh ticket, it will be at current rates,' Bhargava told IANS.

He said as far as Air India was concerned, many stranded passengers were accommodated not only on the existing domestic routes but also overseas flights that transit through Indian cities.

The national carrier, he said, also had both aircraft and crew on stand-by for immediate deployment should Jet Airways be forced to cancel more flights in the coming days.

'We are in talks with the government and Jet Airways officials. In the event of need to operate special flights to help stranded passengers, we would do so for which we have kept on stand-by aircraft and crew.'

Some 20,000 passengers were stranded after the pilots of Jet Airways went on mass 'sick leave', leading to cancellation of nearly 200 flights - both domestic and international.