"The proposals have come up for consideration twice before the aircraft acquisition committee. On both occassions, the Government has not taken a decision on the proposals," said sources in one of the private sector airlines.

The proposals were viewed by the aircraft acquisition committee in November and later in December-end. However, a decision is still awaited. Civil aviation ministry officials, when contacted, were tight-lipped on the issue. The postponement implies that the two private airlines will huge expenses, analysts say.

Jet Airways has already trained a batch of its pilots and engineers abroad for the 70-seater fleet. The new ATR-72 aircraft are ready for delivery at Aerospatiale's assembly line in France. The delayin acquiring the aircraft is proving to be expensive for the Naresh Goyal-promoted airline.

Sahara, meanwhile, had unveiled a pre-entry advertisement campaign in December, featuring the 50-seater aircraft and the new destinations to be covered by the airline. The airline has withdrawn these advertisements now.

Sahara has also postponed an agreement which it was due to sign with a foreign company in December for the delivery of the 50-seaters.

Jet and Sahara were planning to cover smaller non-metro destinations and important tourist locations with the 70-seater and 50-seater aircraft. The smaller planes need less runway space to land and can be utilised well on regional airports.

While Sahara had targeted routes such as Pune-Goa, Kanpur-Calcutta, Jodhpur-Udaipur, Lucknow-Allahabad and Chandigarh-Amritsar as the likely routes for flying its 50-seaters, Jet had proposed to fly on the Hyderabad-Vizag, Hyderabad-Chennai routes besides covering Varanasi, Udaipur and other tourist circuits.

The entry ofsmall aircraft in the domestic avaition industry has turned into a controversial subject. While civil aviation minister Ananth Kumar is keen on Indian Airlines acquiring small aircraft, the national carrier is opposed to the plan. The airline has said that the purchase of 50-seaters will not be cost-effective.

Jet Airways current 21-aircraft fleet consists of a mix of next generation Boeing 737-800s and 400s and 300s. Sahara Airways flies two 747-300s and two 747-400s.