MUMBAI, Apr 14; A Fare war has been triggered by the domestic carrier, Sahara India to exploit the potential of the peak summer passenger traffic. The Delhi-based airline is offering discounts of Rs 600 to Rs 1000 in all the major routes as demand for seats has jumped substantially between April and June due to holiday season.Thanks to Sahara India, even national carriers like Air India has jumped into the bandwagon by introducing 50 per cent discounted tickets for the government employees for its evening flights. For the night flights, Air India is already offering 50 per cent discounts. Though the flight timings and airport terminals are uncomfortable in both Mumbai and Delhi, many passengers are still preferring to fly by Air India to save money, say travel agents.Sahara is offering a discount of Rs 1000 in the Mumbai-Delhi route, and Rs 700 between New Delhi and Bangalore. Though keeping its prices at the same level, Indian Airlines has introduced hourly shuttles between Mumbai and Delhi, thusoffering more seats. Jet Airways is the only airline which is trying to exploit its brand name and not offering any discounts to its passengers.The only handicap faced by Sahara at present is its small fleet size of four which is far lesser than its rivals. While Jet Airways boasts of 25 aircraft in its fleet higher even than Air India Indian Airlines is the largest carrier with 52 aircraft in its fleet. Due to this, the airline is unable to take advantage of the high traffic between Mumbai to Kochi, Mangalore and other destinations in Kerala. Due to increasing number of Gulf returnees, it is difficult to get seats in these routes, say travel agents. Hence, Jet Airways has introduced more flights into these routes.
