Taking a dig at airlines amid passenger fury for chargeable web check-in for all seats, Indian Railways listed out four reasons why train should be preferred by people over airplane.

In a tweet on micro-blogging platform Twitter, railway ministry listed pre-allocated seats, no web check-in, no extra charge and affordable rates as the advantages that rail travel provide to passengers.

No need to pay extra charges for Web-Checkins. No long queues for checking in your luggage. Avoid unreasonable tariff & reduce your carbon footprint by travelling on the good old Indian Railways at affordable rates. pic.twitter.com/ks9fVphoLO

— Ministry of Railways (@RailMinIndia) November 26, 2018

The tweet from the state-run unit came at a time when Twitter was flooded with complaints by angry passengers against airlines charging for all seats on web check-in, essentially forcing passengers to stand in queues at the airports to select a seat for free.

"No need to pay extra charges for Web-Check-ins. No long queues for checking in your luggage. Avoid unreasonable tariff & reduce your carbon footprint by travelling on the good old Indian Railways at affordable rates," Railways tweeted.

The series of flyer complaints took place when IndiGo started informing passengers on Sunday that as against the earlier policy of charging for preferred seats such as aisle, front area or window, the airline will now be charging for all seats on a web check-in.

"As per our revised policy, all seats will be chargeable for web check-in. Alternatively, you may check-in at the airport for free. Seats will be assigned as per the availability," IndiGo said.

While the airline issued a clarification on Monday that it has not changed its web check-in policy, but customer executives of the airline and company officials say that web check-in will be charged for all seats, except maybe be for some seats for a departure within 24 hours.

"Keeping in mind consumer preferences and market demand, IndiGo makes dynamic decisions about pricing for Advance Seat selection. This segmentation helps us to serve different customer segments as per their requirement. While the preferred seat pricing starts as low as Rs 100, there would be some seats that may be available for free depending on the market dynamics for the flight," IndiGo said.

Among other low-cost service carriers, SpiceJet also charges for pre-selection of all seats and the charges start at 99 rupees.

While the aviation ministry has taken note of these charges and has said that it will review them, it remains to be seen what steps can the ministry take in a sector which is largely driven by supply-demand dynamics

First Published:Nov 26, 2018 10:45 PM IST