Acquiring Air Sahara will give Jet Airways the scale required to dominate the lucrative routes to West Asia and the United Kingdom.

The government plans to open up the India-Gulf sector by January next year to private airlines that have completed five years of domestic flying.

"In that case, the Jet-Sahara combine will be a dominant player after the state-owned Air India-Indian Airlines. The Gulf sector is a cash-cow and the Jet-Sahara combine will be eligible for it," said a Jet executive.

The India-UK route too is attractive. "Air Sahara has international rights to operate flights to London and destinations in the UK. Many routes can be curtailed and the freed capacity deployed on new routes," he said.

If Jet's merger with Sahara goes through, the combination will be the largest domestic airline with a market share of 35 per cent and 89 aircraft. (Jet has 62 aircraft and Sahara 27 including seven Bombardiers).

"There is a commonality of the fleet as both operate Boeing 737. The two can share the spares, maintenance and engineering support," said a Jet executive. Post acquisition, Jet will get Sahara's more than 200 pilots, 600 cabin crew members, 225 check-in counters, and 22 parking bays. It will also get prime time slots on domestic and international routes.

Jet will also be free from the requirement of giving bank guarantees worth Rs 1,500 crore (Rs 15 billion), which it had to as part of the high court judgement following the collapse of the deal earlier.

However, industry analysts say Jet may find it difficult to raise capital to revamp Sahara. "Jet is readying itself for a global launch for which it requires capital," they felt.