Air Sahara cuts fare by 20-70%

Toeing the line taken by its competitors, including Indian Airlines, Air Sahara on Tuesday announced the launch of fare buckets while doing away with its advance purchase schemes, claiming that the new system would lower airfares by 20 to 70 per cent.

"We are introducing this new fare structure replacing the Apex and last-minute fare schemes," Air Sahara's executive vice president Alok Sharma said.

The new system called 'Solar Fares' will do away with restrictions relating to advance purchase as well as those imposed during cancellation of Apex tickets, he said.

This would mean that a passenger can now purchase a ticket for any flight and get a major discount – provided seats on the low fare buckets are available. There would be seven levels of fares, including the normal fare.

Besides lowering fares purchased in rupees, the dollar fare would also be lowered by 20 to 60 per cent.

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Elaborating, Sharma said the 30-day Apex fare on the Delhi-Bangalore sector was Rs 5,828, whereas the lowest fare bucket on this sector would be Rs 3,555. "There is a 71 per cent drop in the lowest fare on Kolkata-Hyderabad sector than the lowest Apex fare on that route", he said.

Likewise, the Delhi-Mumbai lowest fare would be Rs 3,333, compared with the normal fare of Rs 8,870, while Delhi-Kolkata would also be Rs 3,333 compared with Rs 10,095.

On the Delhi-Chennai route, the lowest fare would be Rs 4,999 as against the normal fare of Rs 13,210 and on Delhi-Bangalore, the lowest fare would be Rs 3,555 as against Rs 12,830.

Asked how the airline would cope with the additional burden on low fares in the face of growing prices of aviation turbine fuel, Sharma said the new scheme would encourage more travellers to fly and "this higher load factor will offset the fuel impact".

The Air Sahara official said only Rs 500 would be charged for cancellation of these tickets up to one hour before departure.