Air Sahara announces expansion of overseas

Kochi, Mar 12: Air Sahara today announced an expansion of its overseas services, adding Male and Kuala Lumpur to the foreign destinations covered by it.

Addressing a press conference here, Air Sahara president Alok Sharma said while the Cochin-Trivandrum-Male service started on March ten, a Delhi-Kuala Lumpur connection would be added to the network on March 19.

Kuala Lumpur would be Air Sahara's fifth international destination, the others being Sri Lanka, Nepal, Singapore and Maldives.

With the flight to Male from Trivandrum and Cochin, Air Sahara had become the first private airline to fly to an overseas destination from Kerala, he said.

Mr Sharma said the airline was keenly awaiting the government's three-year moratorium on private airline services to the Gulf to end this December.

''We are hopeful that we will get the government's permission in January, 2008, to start our service to the Gulf countries,'' he added.

Stating that ''quality at a reasonable price'' was the airline's motto, Mr Sharma said both the budget and full service airlines could co-exist in the Indian market.

However, in the long run, the budget airlines would find it difficult to sustain their operations unless they hiked their fares, he said.

Asked about the proposed merger of Air India and Indian, Mr Sharma said this posed no threat to the private airlines and would in fact be a good development for the country.

Describing Air Sahara as among the top private airlines in the country, Mr Sharma said the carrier was hoping to net a business turnover of about Rs 2,200 crore during 2006-07.

To further strengthen its presence in southern India, Air Sahara had added Coimbatore to the network on March ten, making it the 27th domestic destination.

Last month, the airline had also started return flights between Hyderabad and Pune and Nagpur and Pune. It had also launched a new connection to Srinagar from Mumbai via Delhi.

Terming Air Sahara as ''Kerala's own airline'', Mr Sharma said the carrier was operating ten domestic flights out of Trivandrum and Cochin every day, including three to Delhi. It had also started an early morning Cochin-Bangalore service from March ten, becoming the first domestic private airliner to park its aircraft for the night at Kochi.

Apart from the three-daily Cochin-Delhi flights, aimed at business travellers, the airline was also aggressively promoting tourist traffic to Kerala from north India. For this purpose, it had started a special 'LTC Holiday Package' to the state, offering a round ticket and an all-expenses covered nine-day stay in major tourist destinations in Kerala for Rs 40,000 per head.

The airline was now going to work out a similar package for tourists from Kerala wanting to visit north India, he added.

UNI