Air Sahara

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Air Sahara

IATA S2	ICAO SHD	Callsign Sahara
Founded		1991
Hubs		Indira Gandhi International Airport
Focus cities / secondary hubs		Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Bangalore
Fleet size		28
Destinations		26
Parent company		Sahara India Pariwar
Headquarters		New Delhi
Key people		Subrata Roy (founder and owner), Alok Sharma (President)
Website: http://www.airsahara.net

Air Sahara is an airline based in New Delhi, India. It is a privately owned airline operating scheduled services connecting all metropolitan centres in India. The airline also provides helicopters which are available for charter services and aerial photography. Its main base is Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi, with hubs at Begumpet Airport, Hyderabad, Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport, Mumbai, Chennai International Airport, Chennai and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport, Kolkata. The uncertainty over the airline's fare has caused its share of the domestic Indian air transport market, from approximately 11% in January 2006 to a reported 8.5% in April.

1 History
2 Proposed Jet Airways takeover and aftermath
3 Services
4 Codeshare with AA
5 Fleet
6 See also
7 External links
8 References

[edit] History

The airline was established on 20 September 1991 and began operations on 3 December 1993 with two Boeing 737-200 aircraft as Sahara Airlines. Initially services were primarily concentrated in the northern sectors of India, keeping Delhi as its base, and then operations were extended to cover all the country. Sahara Airlines was rebranded as Air Sahara on 2 October 2000, although Sahara Airlines remains the carrier's registered name. On 22 March 2004 it became an international carrier with the start of flights from Chennai to Colombo. It is part of the major Sahara India Pariwar business conglomerate.

[edit] Proposed Jet Airways takeover and aftermath

On January 19, 2006 Jet Airways announced that it was to buy Air Sahara for $500 million in an all-cash deal. Everything, including Sahara's assets and infrastructure would belong to Jet Airways. This deal would have been the biggest in India's aviation history and the resulting airline the country's largest, had it gone through. Jet Airways management had planned to rename Air Sahara to "Trans Jet", with a separate corporate logo and livery.

The Indian Government had initially expressed its doubts on whether such a deal was legal, since no such deal had previously taken place in Indian Civil Aviation. However the Indian Civil Aviation Ministry ultimately gave approval in principle for the deal.

Market reaction to the deal was mixed, with many analysts suggesting that Jet Airways was paying too much for Air Sahara. The deadline for the deal to be completed was June 21, 2006, but in the days before this, the chances of the takeover being completed began to look shakier. Jet Airways claimed that a final sticking point was the government's delay in giving Jet chairman Naresh Goyal approval to be appointed to the Air Sahara board. Air Sahara countered that Jet Airways had engineered this impasse by delaying the request for such approval, as a way of extricating themselves from a deal they now regretted. Jet was said to be willing to go ahead with the deal only if the originally agreed price was lowered by 20-25% on the basis of Sahara's mounting debts, an option which was firmly rejected by Air Sahara. Finally both sides confirmed that the deal was off.

Following the failure of the deal, the companies have now filed lawsuits seeking damages from each other. [1]

The Bombay High Court on Friday 22 September allowed Jet Airways to withdraw Rs 1,500 crore deposited by it for acquiring rival Air Sahara. "Jet will have the right to withdraw Rs 1,500 crore against bank guarantee of the same amount," Justice D K Deshmukh said in his order. The amount in the escrow account will go to Jet and the interest will go to Air Sahara. However, the escrow account formalities will be decided by an arbitration tribunal. Arbitration is to begin on 9 October 2006.

[edit] Services

Air Sahara operates the following services (as of December 2005):

Domestic scheduled destinations: Ahmedabad, Allahabad, Bangalore, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Coimbatore, New Delhi, Dibrugarh, Goa, Gorakhpur, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kochi, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, Patna, Pune, Ranchi, Srinagar,Thiruvananthapuram, Varanasi and Visakhapatnam.
International scheduled destinations: Colombo, Kathmandu, Durban, Singapore,London Heathrow.
Helicopter charter services are operated between Delhi and Mumbai.
Flights to Bangkok, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, and Seoul are planned.

[edit] Codeshare with AA

Air Sahara currently codeshares with American Airlines

[edit] Fleet

The Air Sahara fleet includes the following aircraft (at August 2006) ^[1] :

1 Boeing 767-300ER
8 Boeing 737-700
2 Boeing 737-700BBJ
5 Boeing 737-800 (further 10 on order) (deliveries are scheduled to begin in mid 2009 and the last to 2010)
3 Boeing 737-400
2 Boeing 737-300
3 Bombardier CRJ-200ER
4 Bombardier CRJ-200LR

Air Sahara average fleet age is 6.5 years old in June 2006.

The airline also operates Helicopters on non-scheduled routes.

3 Ecureuil Helicopter
1 Dauphin Helicopter

Following approval to begin long-haul services to London, Air Sahara had considered acquiring three Airbus A310 aircraft from Singapore Airlines.^[2]

[edit] See also

Jet Airways

[edit] External links

[edit] References

^ Flight International, 3-9 October 2006

	Airlines of India
	Air Deccan • Air India • Air-India Express • Air Sahara • Alliance Air • Archana Airways • Blue Dart Aviation • Club One Air • Crescent Air • Deccan Aviation • East-West Airlines • Go Air • Indian • IndiGo Airlines • Indus Airways • Jagson Airlines • Jet Airways • Kingfisher Airlines • Paramount Airways • SpiceJet • Visa Airways