Air Sahara announces expansion of service to Male, Kuala Lumpur

Kochi, Mar 12 (UNI) Air Sahara today announced 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 10, 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.

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