Air Sahara on Friday announced the induction of 50-seater regional jet planes into its fleet as part of plans to spread its network into small towns and cities of the country.

The private domestic airline plans to operate seven such jets, made by Canada's Bombardier Aerospace, by April 2003 on feeder routes, Air Sahara CEO U K Bose told reporters.

"We expect to offer 14,000 seats per day with the addition of the new aircraft as against 8,400 now. The number of sectors should also go up to 26 by the year-end from 13 at present," Bose said.

He said $18-20 million would be spent on acquiring the Canadian Regional Jets (CRJ-200). The airline would also spend about $20-25 million to take five Boeing-737 aircraft on lease this year as part of a $40-45 million fleet expansion plan.

The first 'CRJ-200' aircraft would start its scheduled flight on February 28, 2003. The aircraft would be based in Delhi to Kolkata via Lucknow and Allahabad every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. In the evening, it would return to Delhi via the same route.

Every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, the aircraft would fly from Delhi to Kolkata via Lucknow and Gorakhpur while in the evening, it would fly back to the capital via the same route.

The CRJ jets would be taken on a seven-year operational lease by Air Sahara, Bose said, adding that pilots, cabin crew and flight dispatchers were trained by Bombardier.

He forecast that domestic air travel, especially on regional routes would jump by 10 per cent with the operation of these new airplanes.

Air Sahara would deploy the five 150-seater Boeing 737-700 and 800 aircraft on high-density routes, Bose said, adding two of these aircraft would be inducted within the next three months and the remaining two by this year-end.

The acquisition of the new aircraft would be funded through loans from financial institutions, banks and internal accruals.

The airline hopes to have 22 aircraft in its fleet by this year-end with the addition of the new aircraft.

Air Sahara has urged the government to impose sales tax on Aviation Turbine Fuel for jet planes as per their seating capacity.

This, Bose said, would bring the sales tax on ATF for smaller jets like the CRJ at par with that of turbo-prop aircraft at four per cent thereby reducing operational costs.