Air Sahara, India's third largest domestic airline after Indian Airlines and Jet Airways, has drawn up an expansion plan of $6 million to finance fleet acquisition.
Disclosing this, Uttam Kumar Bose, chief executive officer (CEO), Air Sahara said the company would induct four new planes (two Boeing 737 700 and two brand new 737 400) by end of this month on dry-lease basis.
While most of the capital expenditure would be met by internal accruals, the company was also exploring the possibility of debt from financial institutions.
After the induction of new planes, Air Sahara would increase the number of daily flights from 38 now to 54. The company also intends to fly to new destinations, mainly in the north-east.
"Fleet acquisition is linked with introduction of new routes. For instance, Kolkata-Agartala-Kolkata flight is expected to be on course from first quarter of next calendar year," Bose said.
Air Sahara at present has 8-9 per cent share in the domestic market. The airline wants to grab at least 18 per cent by end of next calendar year by effective yield management system.
"We have offering innovative packages to attract more passenger on our board. Sahara has introduced weekend fare offered at a discount. Also we have launched frequent flier programme in which flying 13 times in Sahara would get a Delhi-London-Delhi ticket," the CEO added.
Sahara offers 6000 seats per day and it operates with 52 per cent seat load capacity. The airline thus has lots of vacant seats to offer and the aggressive frequent flier plan (as oppose to Jet - 47 times and Indian Airlines - 54 times) is aimed to increase seat load.
The airline is trying to woo the business travelers to its board. Presently, corporate travelers fill up only 40 per cent of its occupied seat load. Bose said the company was trying to scale it to 85 per cent as this community still dominates Indian sky. This year, the global downturn in aviation industry has affected its business. Bose, however, claimed that the impact of terrorist attack in the US was limited for Sahara as dollar travel with Sahara is only 8 per cent.
"The business went down by 12 per cent in September but it has again went up by 20 per cent from that low in the next month," Bose added.
