The Hindu Business Line : GoAir offers to buy Air Sahara

"We are open to it (acquisition) if the price is right," the GoAir Managing Director, Mr Jeh Wadia, told Business Line. He, however, said that Air Sahara had not approached the airline yet. "It is too early for them to talk to anybody," he said.

Mr Wadia, however, did not reveal the amount the airline was willing to pay.

"As we have not carried out due diligence of Air Sahara, we will not be able to talk about the price we are willing to offer," Mr Wadia said.

Jet Airways had inked a deal with Air Sahara to buy the airline for $500 million (Rs 2,309 crore) before the deal fell through early this week.

Mr Wadia said his airline is also in talks with a couple of domestic airlines for an interline agreement.

The acquisition of Air Sahara would help GoAir to fly international routes much earlier than expected.

As per civil aviation norms, airlines can fly international routes only after completing five years of domestic operations. It will also help GoAir to get convenient time slots and access to Air Sahara's infrastructure at various airports across the country.

GoAir, which started operations seven months ago, is one of the latest low cost airlines to enter the domestic air space. It currently has three aircraft and plans to add eight more by October, another 18 by October 2007 and 33 by October 2008. "All these will be from the A320 family and will be either leased or those purchased by us," Mr Wadia said.

For the first full year of operations, GoAir expects to post revenues of around Rs 500 crore and plans to break even towards the end of next year.

Mr Wadia said the airline, which has a PLF (passenger load factor) of around 72 per cent, expects to double its market share to around 8 per cent by next year.

Currently, 2 per cent of its revenues are from advertisements on its aircraft, which is expected to grow to 9 per cent by the end of the year.

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