Jet, Sahara fly closer to merger

New Delhi: In a move that paves the way for merger of Jet Airways and Air Sahara, the civil aviation ministry has approved merger and acquisition (M&A) guidelines, which allow transfer of airport infrastructure used by one airline to another.
The recommendations of the aircraft acquisition committee — which drafted the guidelines — have been accepted, civil aviation minister Praful Patel said on Thursday. Since the M&A policy from the civil aviation ministry was not ready, Jet has been running Air Sahara as a subsidiary.
Now that the policy is cleared, the Naresh Goyal-owned airline can merge Air Sahara with itself.
Spelling out the norms for airport infrastructure transfer in case of mergers or takeover of airlines, Mr Patel said only user rights given to a particular airline on a non-payment basis, might be allowed to be used by the airlines that takes over the aircraft.
In other words, Jet cannot sell or ‘transfer’ the airport infrastructure allotted to Air Sahara. These facilities can be used only by Jet or returned to the airport operator.
12/05/06 Economic Times

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