With austerity the flavour of the recession season, Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee flew to Kolkata on an economy-class ticket in a budget airline, but made no fuss about it.

“This is nothing new for me. During the election time or even when I travel on commercial flights, I travel by economy class most of the time. Today is no different,” said the minister, who is expected to return to New Delhi on Sunday on an economy-class ticket on an Air India flight.

According to sources, Mukherjee may cancel his visit to Cyprus for a Commonwealth Ministers’ meeting for which he had planned to go by a special aircraft. They said even if he flies abroad for a World Bank meeting in Turkey sometime later, he would fly economy class.