NEW DELHI: Signalling the beginning of another round of fare war in the international sector, private carrier Air Sahara on Monday announced the sale of 2006 Delhi-London return tickets at Rs. 10,000 on first-come, first-served basis.

The limited tickets would be up for grabs from Tuesday on the redesigned website of the private airline. The tickets would be valid for one year from the date of purchase, Air Sahara president Ronojoy Dutta told reporters here.

Air Sahara also plans to start services to Hong Kong and Bangkok and a second daily flight to Singapore in the next few months, he said.

The new services would be launched this year after the airline inducts seven Boeing 737-800s as planned.

Asked whether the domestic fares would go down further, Mr. Dutta said: "Quite potentially, yes. The domestic fares should continue to fall."

On international sectors, he said the London and Singapore services of the airline were doing very well in terms of passenger load factor.

Air Sahara carried 3.5 million passengers in 2005 compared with about 2.8 million the previous year, he said, adding that a 15 per cent growth was projected for 2006, after taking into account the seven new aircraft which would be inducted.

To questions on the Government's insistence on training pilots to use CAT-III B instrument landing system to overcome fog-related problems, Mr. Dutta said the carrier would go ahead with training flight instructors and examiners.

"We are continuing dialogue with the Government on ways to relax certain strict conditions on this count," he said.

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