India's leading private carrier Jet Airways will launch a Kolkata-Dhaka-Delhi flight daily from the middle of October, a senior official of the company has announced.

The Kolkata-Dhaka-Delhi flight will connect Jet's service to London from the Indian capital, Sudhakar Rao, Jet Airways' senior general manager (Sales, East India) said in Kolkata.

He said the connection to Jet's London flight is expected to work in favour of the airlines from the point of view of viability of operating a daily flight between Kolkata, Dhaka and Delhi.

This will be the second international destination to be covered by Jet Airways from Kolkata after its flight to Bangkok.

The priave airliner at present operates international flights to several destinations including London, New York, Toronto, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Colombo, Kathmandu and Singapore.

Meanwhile, air fares in certain sectors of India are likely to rise by five to ten percent from October with the advent of busy travel season, compared to slack season spanning from July to September.

The managements of almost all private carriers, including budget airlines, including Jet, Spicejet, Kingfisher, Air Deccan, are believed to be mulling increasing domestic fares from next month.

In fact, business class fares in certain domestic routes have already gone up by five to ten percent. Aviation industry sources intense competition has kept the base air fares (excluding taxes and

surcharges) low especially with the increase in the number of seats in flights.

Interestingly, the proposed hike in air fares from October will be implemented despite the approximate two percent fall in prices of aviation turbine fuel, which accounts for 30-35 percent of running cost of airlines, in September.

The Indian airlines industry is estimated to have suffered a loss of 500 million dollars in 2006-7 and the aviation sector is witnessing merger and consolidation and cutting costs and losses.

Two state-owned airlines Indian (formerly Indian Airlines) and Air India have been merged into a single entity called Air India while Air Sahara has been sold out to Jet Airways. Kingfisher has picked up a stake in Air Deccan.