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The Minister for Civil Aviation, Mr Praful Patel, with (from left) Mr Wolfgang Prock-Schauer, CEO, Jet Airways, Mr Alok Verma, Vice-President, Air Sahara, Mr U. K. Bose, CEO, Air Sahara, and Capt. G. R. Gopinath, MD, Air Deccan, at a meeting in the Capital on Tuesday. — Ramesh Sharma

New Delhi , June 15

AIR Deccan, the country's sole low-cost airline, plans to hold road-shows in London and Singapore later this month in an effort to woo potential investors.

The airlines Managing Director, Captain G.R. Gopinath, said that the airline had appointed M.N. Rothschild as adviser and plans to divest between 20-30 per cent to private investors.

"We will probably try and raise about $60 million-100 million," Capt Gopinath said.

Meanwhile, the airline, which is to start operating Airbus A-320 aircraft, plans to hire seven to eight foreign pilots, apart from taking nine pilots from Indian Airlines (IA) to start operations on the domestic trunk routes.

The airline has signed up for nine Airbus A-320 aircraft. While seven aircraft are on firm order, the airline also has the option of taking another two.

"We hope to take delivery of the first aircraft around the end of this month and start operating on the trunk routes from July 16 to 23," Capt Gopinath said.

The airline currently uses ATR-42-320 turboprop aircraft to fly on routes connecting cities such as Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai.

The airline MD said that a majority of the seats on the trunk routes will be sold at prices which will be 50 per cent lower than market rates. The airline plans to link Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore to Delhi and Mumbai.

Air Sahara, Deccan fares to go up

FOLLOWING in the footsteps of Jet Airways, Air Sahara and Air Deccan on Tuesday said that they too, would be revising their fares upwards.

In a statement, Air Sahara announced a fare increase of around 10 per cent. The new fare structure is to come into effect from June 21 this year and will be applicable on all routes operated by the airline. The statement adds that the upward revision of fares was necessitated to compensate for the rise in aviation turbine fuel (ATF) prices, which has been on the upswing for the past few months.

The statement said that all varieties of fares, including the advanced purchase fares would see an increase of 10 per cent.

The airline has said that the new revised one-way economy class fares would be Rs 7,210 for Delhi-Mumbai and Rs 10,735 for a flight between Delhi-Chennai. Similarly, a one-way economy class flight on the Delhi-Bangalore sector would cost Rs 10,430.

Meanwhile, Air Deccan has said that it plans to effect a five-to-seven per cent increase in its fares on the existing routes being operated by the airline. "An announcement is likely to be made in the next few days," Capt Gopinath said.

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Air Deccan plans road shows to lure investment

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