Sahara to review business plan with E&Y

With its Rs 2,300 crore acquisition deal with Jet Airways falling through, Lucknow-based airline Air Sahara has asked Ernst & Young to review the current business plan of the airline to revive the business and regain lost market share.

The airline is also exploring private equity placement routes to infuse fresh capital of $100 million, that will fuel revival plans.

"We need to bring our passenger back to airline. We are quite hopeful that we could do that. We have asked to Ernst & Young to revisit the current business plan in the changed scenario," Air Sahara President Alok Sharma said.

He said the new business plan will also advise the airline about raising fresh capital. "The new business plan will guide us about the fund required to raised and various routes of fund raising," Sharma said.

Admitting that airline had lost several employees including engineers and pilots, Sharma said Air Sahara has made alternate arrangement to fly aeroplanes.

"We had faced several constraints in the side of pilots and engineering after the walk out of Jet from the deal. Interestingly, post Jet's walkout, lot of employees want to come back to Air Sahara," he said.

Significantly, Air Sahara has re-launched one of its competitive schemes "Sixer in Air", offering six economy flight coupons worth Rs 26,00 for travel on any domestic sector up to September 30.

The scheme 'Sixer in Air', which is inclusive of taxes, would imply that each ticket would cost Rs 3,808 plus taxes compared with a range of Rs 4,775-Rs 5,335 being offered by other full-service carriers. The airline has also announced a new low economy class fare of Rs 8,500 plus taxes on its Delhi-Singapore-Delhi sector.

About the legal battle with Jet Airways, Sharma declined to comment as the matter is subjudice.

"We are seriously reviving our business. We will be taking two Boeing 737-800 aircraft in the month of August and September. Two more aircraft will join our fleet in the month of January and February. With that we will have a fleet of 32 aircraft by February 2007," Sharma said.

This is in addition to airline's original plan to acquire 10 aircraft, he added. Currently, Air Sahara has a fleet of 27 aircraft including new generation Boeing aircraft and seven CRJ-200s. The airline has also four helicopters, which provide charter services.