is an
Airline based in
New Delhi ,
India . It is a privately owned airline operating scheduled services connecting all metropolitan centres in India. The airline also provides helicopters which are available for charter services and aerial photography. Its main base is
Indira Gandhi International Airport , New Delhi, with hubs at
Begumpet Airport ,
Hyderabad ,
Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport ,
Mumbai ,
Chennai International Airport ,
Chennai and
Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport ,
Kolkata . It currently controls about 17% of India's domestic aviation market.
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The airline was established on
20 September 1991 and began operations on
3 December 1993 with two
Boeing 737-200 aircraft as Sahara Airlines. Initially services were primarily concentrated in the northern sectors of India, keeping Delhi as its base, and then operations were extended to cover all the country. Sahara Airlines was rebranded as Air Sahara on 2 October 2000, although Sahara Airlines remains the carrier's registered name. On
22 March 2004 it became an international carrier with the start of flights from
Chennai to
Colombo . It is part of the major
Sahara India Pariwar business conglomerate. On
January 19 2006 Jet Airways announced that it is buying Air Sahara for $500 million. This is the biggest takeover in India's aviation history and the resulting airline will be the country's largest.
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Air Sahara operates the following services (as of December 2005):
- Domestic scheduled destinations: Ahmedabad , Allahabad , Bangalore , Bhubaneswar , Chennai , Coimbatore , New Delhi , Dibrugarh , Goa , Gorakhpur , Guwahati , Hyderabad , Jaipur , Kochi , Kolkata , Lucknow , Mumbai , Patna , Pune , Ranchi , Srinagar , Varanasi and Visakhapatnam .
- International scheduled destinations: Colombo , Kathmandu , Durban , Singapore and London Heathrow .
- Helicopter charter services are operated between Delhi and Mumbai .
- Delhi-Singapore flights began on May 11 , 2005 .
- Flights to Bangkok , Hong Kong , Kuala Lumpur , and Seoul are planned.
The Air Sahara fleet consisted of the following aircraft (at January 2005):
Total - 27
The airlines also operates Helicopters on non-scheduled routes.
- 3 Ecureuil Helicopter
- 1 Dauphin Helicopter
Following approval to begin long-haul services to
London , Air Sahara is considering acquiring three
Airbus A310 aircraft from
Singapore Airlines .
