Is Sahara incubating a new airline?

Mumbai: Alok Sharma, Air Sahara’s former president and CEO, said to be a close confidant of Sahara group chairman Subrata Roy, has started a general aviation company, fuelling speculation that the founder may be trying a second coming in the troubled but alluring airline business.
Air One, an aviation company offering non-scheduled services has begun low-key commercial flights between Mumbai and Aamby Valley, Sahara’s 10,000-acre enclave in the hills near the financial capital.
Roy, who reluctantly sold out his airline to Naresh Goyal’s Jet Airways (Air Sahara is now JetLite), was present at the launch of Air One with Sharma.
Though sketchy, the plans laid out by Sharma’s new airline smell of ambition, though the entrepreneur is distancing his venture from Sahara.
The key point is that Air One has five distinct divisions covering all facets of aviation, albeit without the tag of a scheduled airline.
Asked if he had any plan to start another airline or if he would like to buy back JetLite, Roy was guarded. “I don’t have any such plans, but cannot rule out anything in the future,” he said last Thursday.
07/02/10 Lalatendu Mishra/Hindustan Times

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Categories: New Feb 2010