The promotion offers prizes on quiz questions on Sahara Airlines. The right answers, coupled with a peppy slogan, will get you the prized USA trip. The campaign is related to Sahara's fleet expansion which begins this month. As part of the expansion, the airline is flying in its brand-new 150-seater Boeing 737-700 aircraft in the last week of April.

In another two months, it will replace two of its older Boeing 737-200s with 737-400s. By December, the airline hopes to add two Boeing 737-800s. The entire exercise will take its fleet size from the current four to eight aircraft by year-end.

It's the arrival of the first plane that is causing all the excitement. The new737-700 aircraft, though on dry-lease and not an outright purchase by Sahara, is flying in straight from Seattle and will be the first absolutely new plane with the airline.

``As we will be collecting a new aircraft from Boeing's Seattle factory, we hit upon this promotion. Why not fly the winner over there and give him a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see how giant aircraft are assembled?'' says Parvez Damania who joined two months ago as director in Sahara Airlines.

Damania is not exaggerating. Walking through an aircraft assembly line is an awesome experience. Moreover, as the duopolistic aircraft rivals, Boeing and France-based Airbus, are wary of industrial espionage and threats such as terrorism, their factories are highly restricted areas. Casual visitors are just not permitted, and even authorised ones have only restricted access.

So pitching that the lucky winner is in for a unique experience, Sahara is hoping that the new promotion will reinforce the brand's association with a modern fleet ofnew-generation aircraft.

Meanwhile, spearheaded by Damania, Sahara Airlines is now initiating a battle royale in the domestic airline market. In a well-timed move, Sahara has dropped fares for the summer season. Compared to other domestic airlines, Sahara is now charging Rs 999 less on economy class on the Delhi-Mumbai sector. For Delhi-Bangalore, the discount is upto Rs 700.To publicise the aggressive pricing, apart from advertisements, Damania is penning-off personal letters to corporate big-wigs and industry heads to inform them about the slashed fares.

``I am sending letters to nearly 150 companies to inform them of Sahara's initiative on the fares front. This is the first time a domestic airline has dropped fares officially,'' says Damania. To reinforce the competitive advantage and draw attention to the fare cuts, Damania is also enclosing a comparison of fares of Sahara, Jet Airways and Indian Airlines along with the letter.

Also, to retain the fares in its customer's memory, Sahara has played anumbers game. The new fares have deliberately been pegged on easy-to-remember numbers: the Delhi-Bombay economy class fare on Sahara isRs 4111, Delhi-Chennai is Rs 6666 and the Delhi-Goa fare stands at Rs 5999.

Sahara is also re-running its summer strategy of tying-up with hotels to offer joint holiday packages for domestic tourists. The scheme, the airline maintains, was successful last year with its Goa package scoring a runaway success. The airline is also gearing-up for a season of high visibility, by sponsoring the Golf Lake Open tennis tournament and the Hero Honda Cup.