Air Sahara seats sold out within hours

Fly to Southeast Asia at rock bottom prices.

Within a few hours of opening booking for its Delhi-Singapore-Delhi and Chennai-Kuala Lumpur-Chennai services, Air Sahara today sold all seats on offer to the two destinations.

Air Sahara had come up with an inaugural fare of Rs 10,000 for a round trip to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur for one month starting May 11. Air Sahara executives claimed the entire month's stock was sold out in no time.

"We have seen a good response to our offer and all tickets have been sold. We expect a similar response to out service in the future also," an Air Sahara executive said, adding: "Most flights were sold out in the first half of the day itself."

The executive disclosed that travel agents were among the first to book tickets, with most of them booking seats in bulk.

"Travel agents have been making offers to block tickets since we had announced the offer. We have also seen a considerable interest from individual travelers,' the executive said.

Air Sahara's Singapore flight, operated by Boeing 737-800, would have 12 business class seats and 156 economy, while the Kuala Lumpur flight is operated by a Boeing 737-700, which would have 12 business class and 114 economy.

Agreeing that the introductory offer of Air Sahara has created substantial interest amongst travelers, travel industry sources said that the such a response was anticipated as it was priced much lower than the current average price.

'There is substantial growth in traffic. We expect to have nearly full capacity for the service,' a travel industry source said.

For example, it is expected that the India-Singapore air traffic, which was about 1.16 million in 2003-04 (according to DGCA), will have grown by 30-40 per cent this year.

Travel industry sources also said that after seeing the response to the Air Sahara offer, existing international carriers are expected to reduce the fare on the route considerably.