The Hindu : Air Sahara to acquire 50-seaters

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Feb 13, 2003

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Air Sahara to acquire 50-seaters

By Our Special Correspondent

New Delhi, Feb. 12. In a bid to meet competition, Air Sahara will acquire six 50-seater Canadian Region Jet (CRJ) to deploy on hub-and-spoke kind of regional connectivity with feeder routes.

The airline is also "ready'' to fly to the SAARC countries if the Government decides on designating private domestic airlines in the bilateral air services agreements. It also wants to utilise bilaterals that are left unused by both Air India and Indian Airlines, especially to routes in the Gulf, South-East Asia and China.

The first CRJ aircraft expected to arrive during this week would be deployed on the Delhi-Gorakhpur-Kolkata route. Another aircraft is likely to be operated on the Pune-Hyderabad route. "All the six aircraft will become operational by April,'' the CEO of Air Sahara, Uttam Kumar Bose, said here on Monday on the occasion of a tie-up with Amadeus India for e-ticketing (electronic ticketing) and printed ticketing.

Mr. Bose said the new leased 50-seaters would also be deployed on metro routes during afternoon hours. The airline had set aside $ 40 million to increase its fleet size from 10 to 15 Boeings by the end of the year. "We plan to double the number of daily flights,'' he said at a press conference here.

The Managing-Director of Amadeus, Ankur Bhatia, said in the immediate future the Global Distribution System company would install automated ticket printers at travel agents' locations for printed tickets facility. The e-ticketing plan would be launched in three months after the security clearance and installation of sophisticated machines at airports by Air Sahara.

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